Bhubaneswar: The Revenue and Disaster Management department has issued a public notice on correcting English spellings of various place names to better reflect their original Odia pronunciation.
As part of the exercise, Additional Chief Secretary Arabinda Padhee has written to the state’s MPs and MLAs through the Assembly Secretariat, as well as all District Collectors, seeking their feedback on the proposed changes before finalising the revised spellings.
According to the department, many officially used English names of districts, headquarters, subdivisions, tehsils and blocks are distorted versions of their original Odia names.
Earlier, the government had invited suggestions from public representatives and citizens to restore correct English transliterations.
Following the appeal, the state received numerous proposals and recommendations from elected representatives as well as members of the public for rectifying and standardising these place names.
All suggestions were reviewed by a committee headed by noted Odia litterateur and Padma Bhushan awardee Pratibha Ray.
