The Southern Railway on Friday withdrew a circular which instructed station staff and train operation controllers to avoid using regional languages for official communications.  The circular, which was issued on Wednesday, said only English and Hindi should be used to communicate in order to ensure instructions are "fully comprehended".

The Southern Railway withdrew the circular after Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam supporters staged a protest outside the its office in Park Town, Chennai.The circular was sent out to all section controllers and station masters.

The circuler quoted saying ""It is the responsibility of the control office to ensure that every instruction passed by it to the station masters is clear and fully comprehended," the notice said. "Similarly, it is the responsibility of the station masters to ensure that requesting permissions or advising action taken by them is clear and fully comprehended by the control office."

General manager of South Central Railway,Gajanan Mallya said  "only for the operating part of it. So that they [station masters] understand and do not misinterpret railway signals."

Soon after, the Centre revised the policy and dropped the contentious provision of compulsory teaching of Hindi in non-Hindi speaking states.