“The Urdu house will have a research centre, auditorium and library. It will become a hub for Urdu language excellence and scholarships. We will allocate more funds for this and work will start this year,” said a BMC official. (File)The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) on Thursday floated a tender to construct an Urdu centre in Mazgaon. While the BMC is presently being governed by an administrator after the term of the sitting corporators ended on March 7, the project is said to be the brainchild of the Shiv Sena and is located in an area represented by former chairperson of BMC’s standing committee, Yashwant Jadhav, whose wife Yamini is the MLA of Byculla constituency in which the project is located.
The project is expected to cost the BMC Rs 12.88 crore. Last year, the Shiv Sena had announced Urdu Ghar and made a provision of Rs 1.5 crore in the budget.
“The Urdu house will have a research centre, auditorium and library. It will become a hub for Urdu language excellence and scholarships. We will allocate more funds for this and work will start this year,” said a BMC official.
In Mumbai, Muslims number more than 20 per cent of the population, though only 29 of the 227 corporators are Muslims. The community is believed to play a key electoral role in 50 of the 227 BMC seats.
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Zahir Kazi of Anjuman Islam said, “This is a progressive step…the second largest vernacular schools are Urdu after Marathi. The Urdu Ghar will promote the language…It is spoken by all sections of the society and is certainly not a language of Muslims. It is language of the country.”
Danish Shaikh of Pasbaan-e-Adab said, “Indian languages should be encouraged and Urdu is one of them. It brings love and brotherhood. Our war cry Inquilab Zindabad in freedom struggle brought a lot of josh in freedom struggle. This language is very soft. I am glad BMC is supporting this.”
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