Use Urdu on signboards at Railway stations: Telangana State Minorities Commission tells South Central Railway

Hyderabad: The Telangana State Minorities Commission (TSMC) has asked the South Central Railway (SCR) authorities to come up with signboards highlighting names of railway stations in Urdu, apart from existing languages of Telugu, Hindi and English.

Responding to a petition filed by a student, the TSMC sent a notice to SCR seeking explanation as to why the signboards were not displaying the names of stations in Urdu. It sought a report on the matter by the end of August.

Following a representation received on July 5, which was filed by Syed Abdul Rahman, a resident of Falaknuma, the Commission sought reply from the General Manager of SCR. While referring to the complaint, it stated that the Railway authorities were ignoring the Urdu language, which was State's second official language, but not visible on signboards on par with other languages.

"None of the stations, including even those which earlier displayed the names in Urdu,used the language. Being a student of Urdu, I took it up as an important issue and decided to approach TSMC.

Since Urdu has been declared as the second official language of Telangana.Accordingly, authorities should act, or otherwise it would be an injustice," said Abdul Rahman, who is pursuing MA (Urdu) from Dr B R Ambedkar Open University and a member of Student Islamic Organisation (SIO).