Andhra Pradesh

‘Visista Vijay Puraskar has doubled my responsibility’

NIZAMABAD: Collector B. Ramanjaneyulu who received the Visista Vijay Puraskar from Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy yesterday for keeping the district ahead of all others in implementation of Telugu as official language, said the award doubled his responsibility to sustain the record.

Expressing happiness over the achievement, he said this could be possible with the cooperation, assistance and encouragement of officials, elected representatives, people at large and also the media. In the district 90 per cent official transactions were being made in Telugu and by next year this would be made 100 per cent.

At a press conference here on Thursday, Mr. Ramanjaneyulu said the administration had made it very clear to people that petitions would be accepted and replies would be given to them only when they were written in Telugu.

He said officials were also directed to interact with people and petitioners only in the mother tongue.

Recollecting the Thomas Munro’s (Kadapa Collector during the British rule in early 19th Century) comment that the rulers would get the subjects’ trust and could solve their problems only when the former interacted with the latter in their mother tongue, he said Telugu should be encouraged at all levels, but not at the expense of other languages.

The Indira Kranthi Patham Project Director P. Chinatataiah and the District Youth Welfare Officer K. Madhukar Babu were also present.

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