Name of institutions in Punjabi to be made mandatory: Tript Bajwa

Neha Saini

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 17

The Punjab Government has decided to make it mandatory for every government and even private institution to write their names in Punjabi. Making this announcement, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Minister of Higher Education, Punjab, said a notification related to this would be issued shortly.

Bajwa was addressing the inaugural ceremony of the International Conference on Punjabi Language, Literature and Culture at GNDU here on Monday. The conference, being organised by GNDU in collaboration with the Punjab Government, will mark the week-long Maa Boli (mother tongue) celebrations across the state.

The minister said the objective was to create awareness about the Punjabi language and literature. In his address, he mentioned that at present there were about 12 crore Punjabi language speakers all over the world. “Of them, 8 crore are in Pakistan, 3 crore in India and more than 1 crore are spread across the world. Internationally, Punjabi is the 10 most spoken language in the world among other languages. Our government, universities, colleges and schools need to propagate the research about the Punjabi language to make it popular all over the world,” said Bajwa.

Around 11 eminent Punjabi literature writers and poets like Dr Karnail Singh Thind, Dr Gurbaksh Singh Frank, Dr Manmohan, Dr Ravel Singh, Dr Joginder Singh Kairon, Prof Kirpal Kazak, Balbir Madhopuri, Manmohan Bawa, Bachint Kaur, Surinder Nir and Nirmal Arpan were honoured for their contribution in their respective fields.

Dr SP Singh, former vice-chancellor, Guru Nanak Dev University, said sincere efforts were needed to associate with the Punjabi Language. “Pakistan uses Shahmukhi script to write Punjabi and they have preserved it by passing it from generation to generation. We need to revive and promote our Gurmukhi script of Punjabi with equal love and dedication.” He said Punjabi must be revived through book culture.