The first half-yearly meeting of the Town Official Language Implementation Committee (TOLIC) for the financial year 2025-26 was held here today. Dr Zabeer Ahmed, director, CSIR-IIIM and Chairman, TOLIC, chaired the meeting, which was attended by representatives from various Central Government Offices and members of TOLIC. The main objective of the meeting was to review the Hindi related work of the last two quarters of the member institutions and to collect their other important information for uploading it on the official TOLIC portal. Speaking on the occasion, Dr Zabeer Ahmed announced that workshops, kavisammelans and other events would be organized in future to promote Hindi. He also highlighted the remarkable progress made in the promotion of Hindi on digital platforms like Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Whatsapp and said that Hindi speakers have now become the fourth largest linguistic community in the world, a result of collective efforts.

Dr Zabeer further mentioned that with the government support the Hindi language has not only made stride in the digital world but also adoption in business like Amazon, Flipkarts and others e-commerce portals, deeply embedded in the cultural significance and bridging the linguistic diversity. This was also decided to form a sub-committee and hold a competition for the design of the logo, in which the best logo selected, will be formally awarded. A total of 17 member offices were awarded certificates and mementos on the basis of commendable performance in the previous six months.

Earlier, Sanjay Sharma, member-secretary, TOLIC commenced the meeting with a review of various Central Government offices located in Jammu region. The review was done on the basis of quarterly progress reports submitted by member institutions during the period October-December, 2024 and January-March, 2025. Later, the participants discussed the topics of progressive use of Hindi in their respective offices and making necessary improvements in the implementation strategies. Rajni Kumari, section officer, CSIR-IIIM conducted the proceedings of the meeting while Rajesh Gupta, administrative officer, presented the formal vote of thanks. Among others who addressed the event, included P Pallanivel, deputy director general, National Statistical Office (Regional Office), P K Rathi, Indian Audit & Accounts Service, deputy accountant general and Islam Khan, assistant commissioner, Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan, Regional Office Jammu.