LAHORE: The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry announced to implement Urdu as official language and thus became first Chamber of the country which implemented the orders of Supreme Court of Pakistan. The decision was made by the LCCI president Sheikh Muhammad Arsad.
He said that Founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah declared Urdu as national language of Pakistan and 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.
“If most developed nations like China and Germany are doing most of their work in their official languages then why don’t we?”, Sheikh Muhammad Arshad questioned.
He said that keeping in view the literacy rate in Pakistan, historic decision of the Supreme Court of Pakistan would go a long way and solve various issues being faced by the trade & industry and masses as almost all official documents and forms etc were being issued in English.
Sheikh Muhammad Arshad urged all government departments to use Urdu as official language and translate their rules and regulations, acts, status and websites into Urdu.
The LCCI president urged the Federal Board of Revenue to issue income all tax related documents in our lucid language Urdu to make tax system simple and easy to understand for the business community.
He said that 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.
Sheikh Muhammad Arshad said that 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.
He said that if Federal Board of Revenue takes this initiative immediately, it would not only strengthen the public-private relations but would also help expand the tax net as businessmen would understand tax documents in a better manner and would come into the tax net voluntarily.
