The Commissioner of GST & Central Excise, Chennai outer Commissionerate, on Tuesday clarified that the work at its Official Language Cell is administrative in nature and knowledge of Hindi is not essential, especially at the level of Assistant Commissioner.

The clarification comes a day after B. Balamurugan, Assistant Commissioner, Hindi Cell, GST Chennai Outer Commissionerate, wrote to the Chairman, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC), alleging imposition of Hindi on Tamil officials.

‘Additional charge basis’

“Official Language Cell has been functioning in the Chennai Outer Commissionerate since July 2017 and in view of the shortage of staff and taking into consideration the limited work involved, no officer has ever been posted here on a regular charge. Assistant Commissioner, Superintendent, Inspector and Tax Assistant have been working in the cell purely on an additional charge basis,” it said in a statement.

No currently employed officer had expressed, either formally or informally, their unwillingness to work here, it said and added that all but one of the Assistant Commissioners were from non-Hindi speaking States.

The work of the Official Language Cell involves compilation of quarterly statistical reports on official language implementation and conducting quarterly review meetings.

Since the format is bilingual, knowledge of English is enough to prepare these reports. Official language related work where knowledge of Hindi is essential was handled by another branch in the Chief Commissioner’s office, it said.

Warning of protests

Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president K.S. Alagiri on Tuesday demanded that the Central government stop appointing persons who know only Hindi in Central government offices in Tamil Nadu and warned of protests against the BJP-led Centre if it failed to do so.