More grievances in vernacular languages? Govt is willing to engage translators

HIT by an ever growing number of grievances written in vernacular languages, the government has decided to create a panel of translators to decipher what are those, and who those are directed against. And the department of administrative reforms and public grievances (DARPG) that has taken the lead in this regard, says it would allow government employees to get empanelled and earn some pocket money. But the payment is…
quite low at Rs 120 per thousand words of translation. The government would however pay Rs 10 extra for a thousand-word translation, provided the material to be translated contains technical and difficult matters such as codes and manuals etc. In its circular, the department has described the remuneration as the “token payment”.
And according to the modified version of a 1994 circular, no part-time translator engaged by the government can earn more than Rs 5,000 a year, as there exists an upper ceiling at such a ridiculously low height! The question that comes here is whether any government employee will actually come forward for the job.
Those government employees still willing to get empanelled as translators will have to manage a no objection certificate from their respective department.
The panel of translators will be valid for two years “for doing the translation work from regional languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Gujarati and Marathi etc. to English and Hindi”, a recent DARPG office memorandum states. For the record, office memorandum is a government circular meant for two or more departments.
The move of engaging in-house translators is however important as the government has recognized the significance of grievances being received from rural areas across the country, which are not in English or Hindi. And it raises yet another question: does the government translate each of those letters written in a vernacular language, or most of those actually head towards the shredding machines.