“A meeting on Wednesday threw up the probability that the upcoming elections may welcome Maharashtrian localites as the new members of the new Board. They may prefer to read documents written in Marathi and to ensure equal and effective participation during the meeting, we have no qualms about giving them the document drafted in their native language,” said PCB CEO S K Sardana.

“This is the first time this issue has been brought to light and adequate steps will be taken to ensure that no new Board member experiences preference for Marathi over English as a handicap,” said Sardana who added that the members will also be encouraged to speak in Marathi if they choose.

The PCB officials agreed that many letters from the Cantonment residents to the president or the CEO are written in Marathi. “In fact, though the format for filling forms or for official correspondence is in English, people often fill them in Marathi. At present some of the officers in our Board are Maharashtrians and do help us out if there is a linguistic issue,” said Sardana who added the recruitment of an English-Marathi translator was also in the offing. The Board already has a Hindi-English translator who is a Maharashtrian to help out when doubts relating to Marathi emerge.