Rs. 349 crores spent on promotion of Hindi by DOL
21 Mar, 2013The reply to an application fled under the Right to Information (RTI) Act has revealed that crores of rupees have been spent on the promotion of Hindi language across the country and abroad. The reply to the application, provided by the department of language (DOL), states that Rs. 348.90 crores have been allocated to promote the language across the globe over a short span of three years (between 2009 and 2012).
The department of language has also justified the huge expenditure and has said that the money has been well spent. It mentioned the increase in the number of town official language implementation committees (TOLICs) and said that compared to earlier average of 5-6 TOLICs per year, 26 new TOLICs have been set up during last eight months only. TOLICs are responsible for reviewing the implementation of the official language policy and to discuss the difficulties being faced in that process.
The department added in the reply that Section 343 of the Indian Constitution recognises Hindi as the official language.
Other than DOL, many other ministries and departments spend money for the promotion of Hindi like the HRD ministry does it through three institutions -- Central Hindi Directorate (CHD), Central Institute of Hindi (CIH) and Commission for Scientific and Technical Terminology (CSTT). The quantum and manner of spending has been questioned just as the results achieved by using the money.