Rajesh is among the lakhs of people who use the city buses in Cochin. Now, the KSRTC has around 70 City services including JnNURM Ac and Non Ac Buses. Of these only about 17 buses (Which came under JnNURM Project) have Light Emitting Diode (LED) destination boards that display information in both Malayalam and English. The remaining buses have painted boards with information only in Malayalam.
A Thiru Kochi bus with destination boards written only in Malayalam
If you go and see the metropolitan city Bangalore, Only 800 BMTC buses have bilingual destination boards, while the remaining 4000-odd regular buses have Kannada-only boards.
But the scene is totally different in Hyderabad, There the buses are with destination boards written in English, Telugu, Hindi and Arabic.
A Top official of KSRTC says that the Malayalam boards must not be changed and those who live in the city should learn the language. “Malayalam language should prosper. This is Kerala state. Malayalam is the state language. Those who come here should learn Malayalam”, he says. In the same vein, he says he is not opposed to the new bilingual LED boards for the higher-end buses. We have buses with destination boards in Telugu, Kannada, Tamil, Hindi and English during the time of Sabarimala Season. Almost all the buses from and to Sabarimala will be plying with the destination boards in different languages.
Only Malayalam speaking people travel in the ordinary buses?! What nonsense! The bus system should serve for the convenience of city residents and visitors, whether from Malayalam reading or not. Is that not the basic sign of a kind courteous city? We should have bilingual boards, which are well lit, especially at night and in large font. An LED board is not particularly necessary.
ReplyDeletealso route numbers should be alloted
ReplyDeleteI can't read Malayalam but I got used to these names in a couple of months.
ReplyDeleteI suggest this :
Stick with Malayalam only and introduce route numbers.
We should have both languages incorporated.Though not a big metro the city , WE should be commuter friendly and should shred a conservative image like ONLY MALAYALAM. The language does not need any special promotion unlike in some other southern states . A state with so many tourists , NRIs , and a city of trade , I strongly feel English boards are also nessary .
ReplyDeleteI find the comment of that KSRTC official that every one should learn Malayalam very conservative ,narrow minded cheap and without vision. I guess he sould go join some state corporation in TN/KARNATAKA , or join SOME NARROW MIDED POLITICAL PARTY.
the should be in malayalam, english and hindi. There are arnd 1000+ gujarathi families in kochi. Rajasthanies punjabies etc make an other 1000. This population alone comes around 10000. They need english boards to understand the destination. ALso there are arnd a lack of labourers from northern states like orissa, up, bihar etc. They dnt knw any other language other than hindi. SO the boards should be in all the 3 languages and if possible intamil also 4 d convenience of tamil populaation of the city
ReplyDeleteYes.... there should be English board as well...
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of foreigners visiting Kochi everyday…. English board will be very useful to them. Also, this would help KSRTC from getting more passengers who do not know Malayalam.
Buses should keep a English board as well as Malayalam also because cochi has lot of foreign visitors as well as people from other part of India.
ReplyDeleteThis will help us to build a real world class metro city here in Kerala
PUT ENGLISH ALSO FOR COCHIN CITY SERVICE, AND A SUGGESSION , KSRTC SHOULD PUT "CITY BUS" TITLE IN ALL THE THIRUKOCHI BUSES. IT SHOULD DEFINITLY HELP THE PASSENGERS.
ReplyDeleteThere are many illiterate people working in and around ernakulam town. Most of them are from Bihar, Bangal and other northern states. They don't know either English or Malayalam. So a better option will be route numbers for all buses. Once it was introduced in private buses and was mandatory to have route numbers on all buses. I don't know why it is not happening now.
ReplyDeleteIt should be in English as well. Route numbers too could be thought of. Cochin is not just for the Cochinites. There are herds of people from other parts of the country/world. We should be thinking of them too.
ReplyDeleteEnglish introduction is good but it should be seen that it wont be like: state of CITY SHOP BOARDS which are now only in English to cater the non malayalees. Keralites non patriotic attitude give more space to english than it needs ruining state language. Our language is very dependent language and is only an option, for even a malayalee. Day is not near when we will stop using this language to serve the foriegners. I am against ppl who mock other southern states who put their language high. I am really ashamed to be apart of a society who always want to mimck the west ( a worst scenario of identity crisis). Bilingual is a solution but it should be seen that malayalam is given the first priority.
ReplyDeleteJapan, Vhina, Russia ,France,Germany can even stick with their language then Kerala can also do that.
Hindi being a language of some states their supermacy over it cause implementation of it in various state.
Put sanskrit as language....Feel the difference
I feel that our mother tongue, Malayalam should only be used on the bus boards. But we have to start implementing the Numbering system for routes. We should learn from BTMC and Chennai STC buses. They use only the local language but make use of the route numbers.
ReplyDelete@Kannan, wit al respect, mate i disagree wit wteva u have jotted. Lemma remind u, its not sm inflated patriotism for d vernacular language which is d point of discusion, bt shud d display boards of buses be understood by every commuter. And for dat reason, der got to be display boards wit destination name written in 3 languages (E,H,M) and positively, d route numbers as well.
ReplyDeleteIn response to a comment in d article which says majority of BMTC buses in Bangalore displays destination only in Kannada, 2 points, 1) al d bangalore buses have route numbers assigned. 2) its d old bmtc buses which doesnt have led destination diaply boards in English, and all d new buses introduced do have an led destination display board for english.
It is difficult to provide destination boards in more than one language (except on LED displays). However a numbering system is must. In Mumbai even numbers are given in Devnagari ! But that will solve th problem and encourage use of Malayalam.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, in Hyderabad displays have Urdu not Arabic.
think practically,.... this s our KSRTC na.....?! As a regular passenger in Kochi, my observaion is that many of the THIRUKOCHI buses do not have even proper malayalam boards...!! so first try to rectify this....
ReplyDelete