Tulu as additional official language of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts in Karnataka | Explained

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Several Tulu activists celebrate the Karnataka Government's decision to accord Tulu second official language status. | Photo Credit: H.S. Manjunath

Karnataka government, in its Cabinet meeting held in Mangaluru on September 18, decided to accord the additional official (administrative) language status to Tulu, which is commonly spoken in Dakshina Kannada district, southern parts of Udupi district in Karnataka and northern parts of Kasaragod district in Keralam .

While making the announcement , Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar said the status will be applicable to administrative matters in the two districts. The respective district administrations will be the implementing agencies. The government will release ₹82 lakh annually for translation, training and language usage purposes.

B. Shivarama Shetty, former Project Director, Centre of Excellence for Studies in Classical Kannada, Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL), Mysuru, said that elected representatives can speak in Tulu at gram sabhas of gram panchayats, taluk panchayats, and zilla panchayats meetings. It also applies to urban local body meetings such as city corporation council, city municipal council and town municipal council meetings. The government circulars and orders issued in the two districts should also contain Tulu in addition to Kannada. People can submit applications to government departments in Tulu. This will make officials who do not know Tulu to depend on translations, translators or learn basics of Tulu.

“If a language is saved it meant its knowledge system is preserved,” he said.

When the BJP government was in power, the then Minister for Kannada and Culture, V. Sunil Kumar, on January 30, 2023, formed a committee headed by M. Mohan Alva, Chairman, Alva’s Education Foundation, Moodbidir, Dakshina Kannada, to study and submit a report on declaring Tulu as the second official language of Karnataka.

The committee was asked to submit its report to the government in a week. According to Mr. Kumar, the BJP government could not grant official language status to Tulu because the model code of conduct for the 2023 Assembly elections in Karnataka was declared on March 29, 2023 and the BJP lost the power in the elections.

Later, the Congress government took over in Karnataka. It appointed a committee led by K. M. Gayatri, Director of Kannada and Culture, to study the procedures adopted by the Andhra Pradesh government to grant additional language status to Urdu. This committee visited Andhra Pradesh on January 19 and 20, 2026 and interacted with officials and studied how Urdu is being used in administration. The committee submitted its report to the Karnataka government on March 4, against the backdrop of the move to declare Tulu as the additional official language.

According to a memorandum submitted by Karnataka Tulu Sahitya Academy, established in 1994, to the government seeking inclusion of Tulu in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution, the language has a history of more than 2,000 years.