BENGALURU: Name boards of the commercial establishments should mandatorily have 60 percent Kannada, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) said on Thursday. The establishments have to implement this by November end and if they fail to comply with this, their trade license will be cancelled, BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad warned.
The Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961 (Rule 24-A), states: The name board of every establishment shall be in kannada and if any other language is used, it should be below the kannada version. However, many shops in the Central Business District areas and the-newly added zones including Bommanahalli and Mahadevapura, only have English in the name boards.
A few weeks ago, Kannada Development Authority (KDA) Chairman S G Siddaramiah had conducted a meeting with the BBMP officials and instructed them to cancel the license of the shops that does not have 60 percent of the name board in Kannada. “Based on their directions, we are now insisting commercial establishments to put up boards in Kannada. Kannada should be given prominence with at least 60 per cent of the board being written in Kannada. The rest 40 per cent can be English or any other language,” Prasad said.
“We told the officials of Mantri Square, Malleswaram to have Kannada boards in every shop inside the mall. They have also agreed,” he said. The Commissioner has also issued directions to all the zonal commissioners to ensure implementation.Speaking to Express, KDA Chairman Siddaramiah said though there are laws and acts, it has not been enforced effectively when it comes to Kannada boards. “We are not against any language. We just want Kannada language to look prominent. We had told BBMP to enforce it three months back, which they did not. Now we have sent another reminder. I am not going to leave this here. I will write to the Chief Minister to direct and make concerned official in each district accountable if they fail to implement it,’’ he said.
Suhail Yusuff, secretary of the Brigade Shops and Establishments Association (BSEA) said, “Post demonetisation and GST, majority of the shopkeepers are not making profits. To top this, we are now told to put up a new name boards. As of now, some of our boards are in Kannada and many only in English. But in both the cases, we will have to change it. This will be an additional burden for us. There are 125 shops and we will have to implement sooner or later.