Fadnavis gives auto and taxi drivers one year to learn functional Marathi

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said on 27 August that auto-rickshaw and taxi drivers will have one year to learn functional Marathi. No action will be taken against them in that year for failing a language check. The state will run classes and issue study material.

The announcement followed a meeting with driver groups led by Haji Arfat Shaikh. Fadnavis said the representatives accepted the need to learn basic Marathi and asked for time. Many drivers, he said, left school years ago and sit in different age bands. A short deadline did not match that fact.

How the rule arrived

The government said in April that non-Marathi commercial drivers must reach basic proficiency in the official language. The first deadline was 15 August. Classes were organised in the months between. Transport Minister Pratap Sarnaik's department then ran statewide checks. On the first day it issued notices to 1,268 auto and taxi drivers. Sarnaik had also said licences and permits could be cancelled after a further grace window. An August resolution had given a month to learn, then three more months, then the threat of cancellation.

Sarnaik told the house that 1,65,600 non-Marathi auto and taxi drivers had already attended Marathi classes. That number is the best measure of how large the migrant driving workforce is. Uttar Pradesh supplies a large share of the men behind the wheels in Mumbai, Pune and Nashik.

What one year changes

The year is a pause, not a repeal. The requirement stays on the books. The enforcement tool is parked. Drivers who could not pass a roadside test in August will not lose a badge in September. They will be expected to pass later, after a course the state now says it will staff.

Language rules for public-facing work are common in Indian states. The fight is always over pace and over who sits the test. A 40-year-old driver who has worked a Mumbai beat for a decade can already negotiate fares in broken Marathi and Hindi. A written or oral exam designed by a transport office may still fail him. That is the gap Shaikh's group described.

Fadnavis framed the extra year as a response to people who said they were willing to learn. That framing keeps the political claim intact: Marathi remains the expected language of the trade. It also avoids a winter of permit cancellations that would have pulled thousands of vehicles off the road in the state's largest cities.

The test of the pause is administrative. If the classes are real, timed and close to the stands where drivers wait, the year will produce more speakers. If the classes are a press note, the same 1,268 notices will be written again in August 2027, with a harder argument on both sides.