LAHORE - The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry has announced to implement Urdu as official language and thus became first Chamber in the country to have implemented the orders of Supreme Court of Pakistan.
LCCI President Sheikh Muhammad Arsad announced the decision on Friday and said the founding father, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, declared Urdu as national language of Pakistan. According to Article 251, the national language of Pakistan is Urdu but unfortunately it could not become our identity due to lack of efforts for its implementation by the previous governments, he added.
“If most developed nations like China and Germany are doing most of their work in their official languages then why don’t we adopt our own national language,” Sheikh Arshad said. Keeping in view the literacy rate in Pakistan, he said, the historic decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan would go a long way and solve various issues being faced by the trade and industry and masses as almost all official documents and forms were being issued in English.
The LCCI president urged all the government departments to use Urdu as official language and translate their rules & regulations, Acts, Status and websites into Urdu. He also urged the Federal Board of Revenue to issue income all tax related documents in Urdu language to make tax system simple and easy to understand for the business community.
“Tax Return Form should be in the national language and contain only one page so that everyone can understand it easily and can perform his national obligation. Due to difficult and complex tax documents in English language, the majority of traders fail to understand which affects the efforts of the government for expansion of tax net.
“If Federal Board of Revenue takes this initiative immediately, it will not only strengthen the public-private relations but will also help expand the tax net as businessmen will understand tax documents in a better manner and will come into the tax net voluntarily.”