Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) Bills

I think it was some 3-4 years back, sitting on the terrace of my previous office with a notorious gang over tea we were discussing why the bloody hell is the MSEB bill printed in Marathi. The scenario is still the same. Marathi is the local language of the State. Most of us then part of that discussion were people who did come to Pune for work and were not born and bought up in this part of the world. So most of us did not understand Marathi. The MSEB bills are printed in Marathi and thankfully the figures are in English, which reminds me to thank for God for little mercies.

I can understand the importance of the local language. I can understand the sentiment of wanting to keep it in marathi but I don't understand the stubbornness of keeping every written word in marathi ALONE except for the title 'Maharashtra State Electricity Board'. It is the case with the property tax bill as well. Amount and the pay-date are in English but everything else on that piece of paper is Marathi. I am not sure about MTNL bills but BSNL has labels and instructions in English & Marathi.

Pune is gearing up to be the next IT hub after Bangalore, if it has not been qualified so already. There is so much activity going around, be it building roads, BRT buses, special BRT routes, brand new PMC & PCMC buses, signals working (except on weekends), fly-overs or better sanitation options to just build better infrastructure and facilitate the boom. Ofcourse all this isn't happening for a whole new generation of Puneris ALONE. Ofcourse the State is planning on immigrants, rather banking on people from the north, south, east, and west to come and make Pune their home. Pune also has its share of international students who come in for their choice of education. Then why this bias to the local language on something as important as the MSEB bill (or are you suggesting we don't pay the bills and the 'friendly' Puneris will chip in) .

The people I tried arguing this with gave me 'Chennai' as an example. Though chennaites have their arguments about 'Hindi' they do have a secondary language 'English' which would help most immigrants get through most printed government documents/bills etc. Pune is worse with no secondary language at all. I am not sure about Mumbai but I am guessing the metro should be having a secondary language on the bills unlike here.

I think Pune is a beautiful place to live with the pleasant climate and no-nonsense attitude of most people but with the cosmopolitan status its acquiring, the State needs to change the typical 'Puneri' attitude and be more welcoming and willing to accommodate. Coming back to my lame point, please please print your bills, documents with English or hindi as well along with marathi ofcourse and save us ignorants of the tedious exercises trying to figure out meter readings and consumption units with out confusing one with the other.