Lahore: The universities of the province have been asked to use Urdu as the official language along with the instant effect and provide all communications in it, news sources reported on Tuesday.

A notification issued by the Punjab Services as well as General Administration Department instructed all university managements to take instant short-term measures to fulfill the orders.

As per the letter, the four-point short-term measures comprised of urgently replacing nameplates outside all offices of staff, management and faculty written in Urdu.

Moreover, the letter instructed that all ‘government interest’ documents be provided in both languages English as well as in Urdu.

These documents comprises of forms, bills as well as statements.

Further, the letter added that the website of the university and its departments be made available in Urdu along with English. “All pages on the website should provide all information in Urdu”.

The final statement of the letter was that all departments as well as institutes should provide Urdu translations to their rules and regulations, laws, policies, announcements and orders of government.

The letter also stated that:

“All translations should be approved by the Punjab Law and Parliamentary Affairs Department.”

Formerly in 2015, a same step was taken by the federal government. It instructed all government as well as private sector universities to utilize Urdu as the official language in all their correspondence.

According to the HEC letter, “As per the Article 251 of the Constitution of Pakistan, the national language of Pakistan is Urdu and arrangements shall be made for it being used for official and other purposes. The prime minister of Pakistan has approved a framework. The receivers are instructed to take the appropriate measures for the implementation of the framework.”

The framework, approved by the Higher Education Commission of Pakistan and attached along with the circular, said public and semi-private departments, under the federal government, had been instructed to translate and publish their policies in Urdu within 3 months. The framework also directed public departments to publish rules and regulations and provide forms to the public in Urdu along with the English language.

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