Srinagar, Oct 04: Jammu and Kashmir Legislative Assembly Speaker Abdul Rahim Rather on Sunday said the government is working on a mechanism to facilitate the use of the Kashmiri language in the house, acknowledging that the absence of translators has been a major hurdle for legislators seeking to speak in their mother tongue.
Rather said the issue needed to be addressed to ensure that members are able to express themselves in Kashmiri during Assembly proceedings without facing procedural difficulties.
Speaking as the chief guest at the ‘Youm-e-Meeras’ event in Sopore, the speaker said the government was examining the matter from different angles.
“The government has to look into many angles. Currently, we don’t have any translator in the Assembly, which often becomes a hurdle in speaking in Kashmiri. Efforts are on to address this concern in future,” Rather said.
Rather said he had never barred any member from speaking in Kashmiri, but the lack of translation facilities made it difficult to officially record such interventions.
“I told those who tried to speak – speak, but it can’t be recorded as we don’t have a translator in the Assembly currently,” he said.
The Speaker also addressed concerns over an alleged regional imbalance in the issuance of Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) certificates, saying the matter should be examined to ensure that no section of society suffers injustice.
Rather said he had directed the government to look into the issue and identify areas where corrective measures could be taken.
“Yes, I have directed the government to examine the same wherever there is scope of improvement to avoid injustice to any section of society,” he said.
He stressed that the matter needed to be examined seriously so that any existing disparity could be addressed and no section of society was deprived of its legitimate entitlements.
