Bhubaneswar: The Odisha government has notified revised English spellings for 64 administrative units across 26 districts and issued firm deadlines for their enforcement across public and private platforms.
The changes, which took effect from the date of publication in the Odisha Gazette on June 22, aim to align spellings with authentic Odia phonetics while leaving the official names of places unchanged.
The Revenue and Disaster Management Department has directed all District Collectors to ensure swift compliance. Government offices have been given a one-month window from the gazette notification date to update nameplates, advertisement boards, display boards, and other official signage. Private businesses and commercial organisations have received a more lenient six-month period to revise their signboards accordingly.
The government has also communicated with various Union Ministries and central organisations, requesting them to update records as per their internal procedures.
Officials have emphasised that these modifications correct colonial-era distortions in English spellings without altering the underlying identities of districts, blocks, urban local bodies (ULBs), sub-divisions, or tehsils.
Prominent revisions include Cuttack to Kataka, Rourkela to Raurkela, Balasore to Baleshwar, Bolangir to Balangir, Deogarh to Debagada, and Keonjhar to Kendujhar. These updates followed recommendations finalised after public feedback and are part of the broader Odia Asmita campaign to restore historical and phonetic accuracy.
The notification explicitly states that the exercise focuses solely on standardising English transliterations to better reflect local pronunciations, addressing long-standing anglicised distortions from the colonial period, and do not alter the official names of any administrative units. This initiative is expected to bring uniformity in official records, communications, and public interfaces while reinforcing Odisha’s cultural identity.
