Railway tickets to be printed in Kannada from January, 2018

A major bone of contention, railway tickets in Karnataka are printed in Hindi and English In a first step, the Railways has agreed to print tickets in regional languages, including Kannada, as well But the new facility has not been extended to online tickets, only those bought at the counter

In the wake of protests against 'Hindification' over regional languages, here's some good news for Kannada campaigners. From next January, railway tickets will be printed in regional languages - including Kannada - apart from Hindi and English. An in-principle decision to this regard was taken at the Indian Railways' Passenger Amenities Committee meeting, on Wednesday.

Railway passengers - especially in Tamil Nadu - are put to inconvenience as the railway tickets are printed in Hindi and English alone. On many occasions, they have had to pay a fine for no fault of theirs. Committee member Ashirvadam Acharya raised these issues at the meeting and urged the committee to include regional languages in the tickets in the larger interest of the people.

The panel gave an in-principle approval to have regional languages on railway ticket from January 1, 2018, reports Kannada Prabha. However, tickets in regional languages will be made available only at the ticket counters. This facility is not extended to the online booking system, the committee said.

It may be recalled here that in 2016, BJP MLA CT Ravi had appealed to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu to include Kannada in railway tickets. Meanwhile, when Kannada Prabha queried Anil Saxena, Railway Public Relations Officer in Bengaluru, about the inclusion of Kannada in tickets, he said he had no information on it.