The BBMP office.
Credit: DH File Photo
Bengaluru: The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) may have set a February 28 deadline for enforcing the ‘60% Kannada on name boards’ rule for commercial establishments, concerns are being raised about the civic body’s ability to implement it.
Pointing out that similar announcements were made in 2017 and 2019, Sanneerappa, state general secretary of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike, said that the BBMP had failed to implement the rule.
“This is not the first time such an announcement is made. The BBMP chief commissioner has agreed that they have failed to implement it. While he passes on the responsibility to the zonal commissioner, we are not sure how serious these officers will be in implementing the rule,” Sanneerappa said.
In 2019, the Karnataka Development Authority (KDA) directed the BBMP to implement the rule. The then-chief commissioner also passed an order, warning the establishments that they would lose their trade licenses if they failed to abide by it. However, sources in the BBMP conceded that they could not implement the order.
“In the following year, the BBMP council was dissolved and the order was not followed up. The trade licence renewal was also made online, and owing to manpower shortage, no one bothered to check this,” a senior BBMP official said.
Sanneerappa added that the other states had successfully implemented it and the civic body just needed to take it up seriously. “The same companies that have big name boards in English here have Tamil name boards in Chennai. If they can implement it there, the same can be followed in Karnataka,” he said.
The BBMP chief commissioner is expected to chair a meeting on Tuesday to chalk out a plan to implement the rule, sources said.
CM wades in
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday urged commercial establishments across Bengaluru to include Kannada prominently on their name boards. In a post on X (formerly Twitter) he said that following the rule of the land was our responsibility. “Whether you were born and brought up in Karnataka or have made a livelihood by staying here we consider all of them Kannadigas. In Karnataka Kannada gets the utmost priority and it is each of our duty to abide by the law of the land” the post said.
Won’t tolerate violence: DKS
Referring to attacks on some establishments by pro-Kannada activists Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar said that the government would not tolerate violence or attacks on commercial establishments. While he urged the establishments to abide by the law he asked the pro-Kannada activists to work within the legal framework.