PUNJAB GOVT TO ENFORCE STRICT COMPLIANCE TO RAAVI FONT IN ALL E-GOVERNANCE TRANSACTIONS

Chandigarh, June 21, 2017: The Punjab government will enforce strict implementation of the Unicode compliant Raavi font in all official matters in order to ensure smooth e-governance transactions.

Standardisation of character encoding is mandated as per the notification of Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, and the same shall be strictly implemented across all government offices, Boards, Corporations, Commissions, etc.

This was announced in the Vidhan Sabha on Wednesday by Health Minister Brahm Mohindra, replying on behalf of Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh to a Call attention notice. The call attention was raised by MLA Prof. Baljinder Kaur and related to the use of only Raavi font for all tests/exams that are conducted in Punjabi.

Mohindra informed the House that the government was in the process of developing various Unicode compliant application softwares as part of its e-governance initiative. All digital services and digital payments require standardisation of character encoding and fonts globally as well as locally, which is necessary for integration of the State economy into the national economy and into the global economy, he observed.

He further said that Raavi had been selected as it was Unicode compliant, unlike other fonts such as Asees and Joy. Allaying the fears of the members of the House that this would jeopardise the future of many candidates as they had been preparing for the test in Asees and Joy fonts, he reassured the House that anyone using non Unicode compliant fonts can easily switch over to typing in the Unicode compliant font within a matter of few weeks.