The State government may be pursuing an aggressive agenda of prioritising Kannada in administration, but the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) is clearly not listening. The just-published Draft Revised Master Plan - 2031 is not available in Kannada.
This has caught the attention of the Kannada Development Authority and its chairman S.G. Siddaramaiah has decided to issue a notice to BDA Commissioner on this, directing him to first publish all documents in Kannada and reschedule the public consultation timetable.
BDA published the draft plan on November 25 and has given time till January 23, 2018, for the public to file objections. Mr. Siddaramaiah said the BDA had done so despite recent assurances from BDA Commissioner Rakesh Singh to the contrary.
“Publishing RMP documents only in English clearly shows that BDA wants to keep a large section of the public out of public consultations. But this is not the first time, even the previous RMP was published only in English,” said Vinay Sreenivasa, who works with pourakarmikas and street vendors, and favours translation of all plan documents into Kannada.
Mr. Rakesh Singh told The Hindu that the BDA will provide “explanations” to anybody on parts of the draft plan that they have difficulties understanding. “It will be in the language of their choice, including Kannada,” he said.
