NEW DELHI:The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) citing an observation by the Committee of Parliament on Official Language (PCOL) has asked all government departments to make sure that a minimum 50 per cent of the total amount spent on advertisements must be on Hindi ads and the rest 50 per cent on advertisements in English and other regional languages.
The MHA letter dated July 6, 2015, quoting observation of PCOL, said majority of the Central Government ministries and departments are giving importance to English advertisements completely ignoring Hindi and other Indian languages.
“This is a very serious situation and the procedure must be amended with immediate effect,” the letter said. The PCOL has, however, recommended that advertisements in any language, including Hindi and English, can be given on different language media platforms. The MHA in its letter has also directed all the Union Territories and Delhi government, which recently hiked its ad budget to Rs 526 crore, to spend 50 per cent of publicity budget on Hindi advertisements.
Earlier, in order to promote Hindi, the MHA Rajbhasha Department had directed that international treaties and agreements should invariably be prepared both in Hindi as well as in English. It had also asked that the stationery items, name plates, notice boards, forms, procedural literature, rubber stamps, invitation cards etc of all the ministries, including Indian missions located abroad, should also be prepared both in Hindi and English.
Last year the NDA Government had courted a major controversy when reports said Hindi was being made compulsory in all the government departments.