Greater Chennai Corporation to conduct name board awareness programme on May 2

CHENNAI: To encourage the installation of name boards in Tamil, the city corporation has planned to conduct an awareness programme for merchant associations and commercial establishments to inform the legal provisions to set the name boards in Tamil and other languages at the Ripon Building on Friday (today).

As the State's pro-Tamil crusade continues, it is notable that the majority of commercial establishments across the capital lean towards having their name board in English.

The Greater Chennai Corporation commissioner, J Kumaragurubaran, told DT Next, "The state government has directed the local body to conduct an awareness programme with the Labour Department to give awareness to merchant associations in the city for a systematic change."

The programme's primary aim is to raise awareness among the merchant associations and owners of commercial establishments to follow the guidelines set by the labour department.

"We will give two to three weeks for merchants to change the name board. The labour department will collect fines and take adequate action against those who refuse to follow the guidelines. The corporation and local body have no authority to fine them," said the commissioner.

In the recently concluded council meeting, Ward 138 councillor, K Kannan, raised the question over the lesser usage of the official language in the city, "Name boards in English are high in a few areas and in a few parts Hindi dominates the name boards."