Bhubaneswar: Nearly 15 years after Orissa was officially renamed Odisha to reflect local pronunciation, state govt on Thursday initiated a process to change the English spellings of 24 places, including seven district headquarters, to align them with their original Odia names. The revenue and disaster management department has issued a public notice proposing the changes and invited objections or suggestions from the public within 15 days.Revenue minister Suresh Pujari, under whose direction the exercise was initiated, said the move was long overdue to ensure Odisha’s linguistic heritage is correctly reflected in official records. “This step is aimed at strengthening Odia Asmita, language and literature at the global level. We found that several place names are wrongly pronounced due to incorrect English spellings,” Pujari said, adding that the notice was part of a democratic consultative process.Cuttack was not included in the current list, though the closest transliteration of its Odia name would be Katak. Pujari said the proposed list is not exhaustive. “Whether it is Cuttack or any other place not mentioned, people can share their opinions. This cannot be done overnight. The corrections will be made in phases. There will be a dedicated cell to ensure all inaccuracies in revenue records are eventually addressed,” he said, adding that the aim is to create error-free official records.The public notice said the changes are proposed to restore original Odia names and ensure accurate representation of the state’s linguistic, historical and cultural heritage, citing misspellings in existing English names. Among district headquarters, the govt proposed changes such as Deogarh to Debagarh, Nayagarh to Nayagada, Khurda to Khoradha and Balasore to Baleshwar, among others.Odisha was officially renamed from Orissa on Nov 1, 2011, following parliamentary approval of the Orissa (Alteration of Name) Act, 2010, and the Constitution (113th Amendment) Act, 2010, which also changed the language name from Oriya to Odia.In some cases, different spellings are currently being used for different places. For example, the district administration uses ‘Khordha’ while railways uses ‘Khurda’ for the station in the same city. Similarly, the district administration uses Kendujhar while the municipality there uses Keonjhar.The move drew criticism from opposition BJD, which termed it a diversionary tactic aimed at deflecting attention from governance failures.BJD spokesperson Lenin Mohanty said the govt was focusing on “cosmetic issues” while farm distress, unemployment, women’s safety and law and order concerns remain unresolved. “Changing names is fine, but symbolism cannot substitute governance. What Odisha needs is a clear vision to tackle pressing challenges, which the govt failed to demonstrate,” he said.
