Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (NR)
 
Mangalore, Feb 5: All Kannada language lovers in the city owe a word of thanks to the Kannada Development Authority (KDA) and Southern Railway, due to whose efforts and initiative, now officially Kannada will make its presence felt at the century-old Mangalore Central railway station.   

Over thirtytwo non-Kannadiga railway officials from different parts of the country including Biharis, Keralites, Tamilians, Rajasthanis and Gujaratis at the railway station began a three-month crash learning exercise here from Monday February 4. The first batch of these 32 students, began learning Kannada with learning materials, with the aid of a text book entitled 'Matanaduva Kannada.'  

The 'Matanaduva Kannada' is compiled by Krishnamoorthy, A R Pasha and Ramachandra Swamy and published by KDA.  KDA jointly with southern railways has started this crash course on speaking and writing Kannada and interacting in Kannada for railway employees and their relatives making it the first such initiative in the state. More officials are expected to follow suit.  

This initiative was undertaken since for decades passengers travelling from the city railway station faced severe communication gap and other related difficulties, while sourcing information from railway employees, majority of whom were non-Kannadigas. In fact, KDA had received several complaints from hassled commuters and even punitive action was sought by many organizations and political parties in this regard.  

So much so that the chairman of KDA Siddalingaiah a few months back, made a personal visit and directed the officials to compulsorily implement Kannada. Wisening to the fact and thwarting any future threat of ugly regionalism raising its head, railway employees themselves seizing the initiative to learn Kannada went ahead and put forth their request to learn Kannada with KDA authorities including its member and president of the district unit of Kannada Sahitya Parishat,  Pradeep Kumar Kalkura.  

The cherry on the icing was when the southern railway too gave its go ahead signal to the proposal by allowing on-duty facility to employees attending Kannada learning classes. On his part Pradeep Kumar Kalkura euphorically termed the moment as historic and declared that “The inauguration of the course is a right step towards meeting the aspirations of Kannada-speaking people here. They have all along been demanding that the railway officials interacted with them in Kannada. This course will now enable them to reach out to the local people,” he added.  

With regard to query on why the course with textbooks brought out by the KDA was being introduced in association with Indian Institute of Languages, Kalkura responded by saying that it is the endeavour of the KDA to promote the language and in this context the latter will extend total support to any organization which comes forward with such initiatives.
 
According to Kalkura, this 90-day-long course would enable employees to speak, read and write Kannada. Classes would be held from 3 pm to 4 pm for 90 days. The course would be divided into three segments of 30 days each. He informed that six resource persons would instruct employees on how to communicate in Kannada in the first segment of the course. The second part would emphasize on writing while administrative communication would be taught in third phase, he added.  

Even non-officials like relatives of employees would be given training. The text books for the second and third phases of the course would be released soon by the KDA. The course which was earlier on inaugurated by S A Prabhakar Sharma, Headquarters assistant to the deputy commissioner, in his speech informed that learning any language was purely a matter of heart. And a functional knowledge of Kannada would help in bridging the gap between railway officials and the local people, he opined further.