BENGALURU: The Kannada Development Authority (
KDA
) has issued a second notice to Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (
BMRC
) MD
Pradeep Singh Kharola, accusing him of dereliction of duty for not removing Hindi names from Metro station nameboards.
The development came a day after some unidentified persons masked the Hindi letters on signboards of the Kempegowda-Majestic and Chickpete Metro stations on Sunday. BMRC officials said they did not know anything about the issue. S G Siddaramaiah, KDA chairman, said, "I asked BMRC to remove the names of stations in Hindi and replace all the name boards with new ones without using Hindi. We have also notified the state government about the violation on BMRC's part. Central government agencies like railways can implement the three-language policy, but BMRC cannot impose Hindi on Kannadigas."
Meanwhile, Twitter was abuzz on the issue. Social media users argued openly for and against the use of Hindi in Namma Metro. Lending momentum to the anti-Hindi campaign was the
Banavasi Balaga
-a pro-Kannada group - which launched a campaign hashtagged #NammaMetroHindiBeda, on the lines of a similar social media campaign titled AapliMetroHindiNako in Mumbai.
DCP-West MN Anuchet told TOI that more police personnel were deployed at a few 'sensitive' Metro stations. "There are rumours about police advising the BMRC to mask the Hindi letters on the boards outside Metro stations. This is incorrect and we have not issued any such advice, " he said.
Earlier, BMRC officials had maintained that they were just sticking to the Centre's guidelines on using Hindi.
2020 deadline for Phase 2
With the third and final tender awarded for the construction of RV
Road-Bommasandra Metro
line, the BMRC is mulling to stick to its 2020 deadline for the second phase of the 72-km Metro network. The five elevated stations in the line are Central Silk Board, BTM Layout, Jayadeva hospital, Ragigudda and RV Road.
The contract also includes the construction of a road-cum-rail flyover and road widening. This line is part of the fully elevated 18.82-km RV Road to Bommasandra section of the Phase II of Namma Metro.