THANJAVUR: The Cauvery Rights Retrieval Committee (CRRC) has taken strong exception to Union government’s reply in Hindi to a query filed by it under the RTI Act. P Maniyarasan, co-ordinator of the committee, said he had sought details from the Central Water Commission (CWC) and the Department of Water Resources of the Union Jal Sakthi Ministry about the quantum of water released by Karnataka to Tamil Nadu.
He had asked if Cauvery Water Management Authority (CWMA) and the Cauvery Water Regulatory Committee (CWRC) had been constituted according to the orders of Supreme Court and whether Karnataka had released the prescribed quantum of water for the months of June-July.
In response, the two replies were in Hindi, Maniyarasan said and pointed out that in Tamil Nadu, Hindi was neither the medium of instruction nor official language of the State. Tamil and English were the official languages in Tamil Nadu, and English was the language of communication between the Union and State Governments as per amendments made to the Official Languages Act 1963.
As such, replying in Hindi to a RTI query sent from Tamil Nadu was against provisions of Constitution, Indian Official Languages Act and Tamil Nadu Official Languages Act. Answering a question which impacted the livelihood of crores of people in a language not known by the applicant was highly condemnable, he added. Maniyarasan has sent a letter to Jal Sakthi Ministry registering his protest and also urged the State government to take up such instances of Hindi imposition with the Union government.