Chennai:
Amidst growing voices accusing the Union government of trying to "impose" Hindi through the state-run radio service, the All India Radio or AIR today said it was "committed to conserve, enrich and promote regional languages."
"All India Radio is committed to conserve, enrich and promote regional languages and cultural heritage, which it will continue to do without any misconceived intention of imposing any language in an area where it has not sufficient speakers of a non-mother tongue," V Chakravarthy, Assistant Director of Programmes, Commercial Broadcasting Service, Chennai, said in a statement.
NDA ally PMK and another outfit -- Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam - have opposed the move by AIR, accusing the union government of trying to "impose" Hindi through local radio broadcast and urged it to give up the proposed initiative.
"In an effort to upscale ulitilization of broadcast infrastructure at 86 local AIR stations including those in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, AIR is putting (in place) a mechanism to bridge the gap between transmissions with chaste programmes in Tamil language to regale, inform and educate audiences in the respective service areas," Chakravarthy said.
AIR has always been in the forefront, bringing unity among people and spearheading the campaign for preserving the glorious cultural heritage of our country, he said.
PMK founder S Ramadoss had said the Centre had planned to impose Hindi through local broadcast by regional radio stations in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in the name of commercial broadcast.
Claiming that the duration of such broadcast in Hindi had been fixed for four hours a day effective October 26, he said local stations have been asked to re-broadcast Hindi content.
Listing initiatives like celebration of teachers' day as "Guru Utsav," the PMK chief alleged that "not even during the British Raj was English thrust on Tamils as Hindi is being sought to be imposed."