Names of 3,000 places to be reverted to Tamil

Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami has already allocated funds for this project and a core committee comprising district collectors, Revenue officials, officials from Tamil Development are in the final stage of the project. The names of about 12,000 local bodies in the state ranging from town panchayats, villages and municipalities have been scrutinised. A committee led by district collectors has also received public suggestions and the exercise has almost reached the final stage. Within two weeks the Revenue Department is likely to come out with a government order, Pandiarajan said.

The Minister added that existing popular words and Sanskrit words will remain unchanged. This is an exercise to simplify English names and make them sound like Tamil words.

A lot of care has been taken to restore the original Tamil names and the comparisons were also done between the English and Tamil phonetics, an official said. For instance, the word Chengalpet sounds English, but the original is Sengalpet. Similarly, Tindivanam is another example and Dhindivanam is the local parlance. Corrections are under way and the corrected words will be used in the government records and signage boards, Revenue Department sources said.

However, the State government project has not gone down well among few old timers. “These are cosmetic changes, which will hardly change the society. How is it going to affect my life if Triplicane is reverted to Thiruvellikeni,” said octogenarian R Sundaram of West Mada Street, Triplicane. “Further care should be taken to ensure that places like Ice House and Elephant Gate are not changed as they have a historical connect with the erstwhile Madras and the East India company,” Sundaram added.