The Tamil Nadu government has stopped the use of medicine covers carrying Hindi instructions at government hospitals in Coimbatore and Karur, Health Minister KG Arunraj said, accusing the previous DMK regime of introducing the templates.
Responding to the allegation, Arunraj said the covers in question were introduced during the previous DMK regime and that the present TVK government had merely continued using the existing templates. First in Karur… now the same situation in Coimbatore too… “TVK is committed to the two-language policy. The row comes weeks after a separate controversy over Hindi destination names appeared on a state highway signboard near Sathankulam. Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin had accused the ruling TVK of Hindi imposition.
However, after a shortage of covers in December 2025, an emergency order was placed with the Erode District Printing Industrial Cooperative Society for four lakh covers. These, he said, entered circulation in January 2026, during the DMK regime.
The controversy erupted after DMK leader and former Industries Minister T R B Rajaa shared photographs of the medicine covers on X and questioned whether the “three-language policy” had now been implemented in government hospitals. He said, “It appears that the three-language policy has been implemented in hospitals! In Karur, the minister said, medicine covers were normally procured from the Central Prison and carried instructions such as “morning / afternoon / night” in Tamil. “The moment this came to the government’s notice, the use of these medicine covers was immediately stopped in both Karur and Coimbatore,” the minister said. Medicine covers will have instructions only in Tamil and English,” Arunraj said, adding that the government would not compromise on the issue. The government subsequently ordered to remove the Hindi names, suspend two officials and said strict action would be taken against those violating the state’s two-language policy.
