Civic Body Orders Kolkata Shops And Eateries To Display Bengali Signboards

As informed by an official, the civic body is keen to impose Bengali syntax on signages, and it has preliminarily decided to start the process around February 21, 2025.

Photo Credit: Justdial 

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According to an official, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has now instructed every commercial establishment in this city to display signboards in Bengali besides other languages.

The civic body is adamant to make Bengali use mandatory in the signages, and the official said it has set tentative dates to start by February 21, 2025.

Municipal Secretary Swapan Kundu said the corporation is in touch with shop owners, restaurants, and other business establishments, which will include different languages also names and other information about the outlets in Bengali.

In October, TMC Councillor Biswarup Dey had called out at a KMC session that all signboards of public and private offices should carry the Bengali script apart from the other languages, and all notifications, letters, and documents should also publish in Bengali of the municipal corporation.

This remark was made by Dey because on October 3, the Centre conferred Bengali with the status of a classical tongue alongside Assamese, Marathi, Pali, and Prakrit.

KMC Mayor Firhad Hakim too had assured earlier of making the efforts to use Bengali in such signage by private advertisement agencies and shops.

"I have nothing against the use of Hindi, English or other languages in banners, festoons, signages and such modes of communication. But, Bengali should also be there along with the others," Hakim had said.

The former mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharya, issuing orders for mandatory bilingual signs on shop fronts in 2007 with Bengali being one, went the way that KMC did in this matter before. But it saw no fruition.