CHENNAI: The Union Ministry of Home Affairs on Saturday approved the conduct of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) Constable (General Duty) examination in 13 regional languages including Tamil, in addition to Hindi and English.
The move comes days after Chief Minister MK Stalin registered his strong objection to the decision of the CAPF to conduct its recruitment examination for constables only in Hindi and English.
Welcoming this decision, the Chief Minister tweeted: "As a result of my letter to Union Minister Amit Shah, the union government has announced that it would conduct the CAPF exams in all state languages. I wholeheartedly welcome this decision and reiterate our demand to provide question papers in Tamil and other state languages in all union government exams," he added.
"This historic decision has been taken at the initiative of the Union Home Minister to give impetus to the participation of local youth in the CAPF and encourage regional languages. The question paper will be set in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Malayalam, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Odia, Urdu, Punjabi, Manipuri and Konkani in addition to Hindi and English", a PIB release here said.
"Examination in 13 regional languages in addition to Hindi and English will be conducted from January 01, 2024, onwards. The Union Home Minister is fully committed to encouraging the use and development of regional languages," the release added.
On April 9, the Chief Minister wrote to the Union Home Minister expressing shock at the decision of the CRPF to conduct its recruitment examination for constables only in Hindi and English. He had urged Amit Shah to conduct the recruitment tests in Tamil and other regional languages so that the youth from non-Hindi speaking states could get an equal opportunity to serve the paramilitary force.