Bhubaneswar, June 22: In a major step towards preserving Odisha’s linguistic heritage and ensuring phonetic accuracy, the state government on Monday announced the standardisation of English spellings of administrative place names across Odisha to better reflect their pronunciation in Odia.
The Revenue and Disaster Management Department issued a notification stating that the revised spellings will apply to districts, sub-divisions, tahasils, blocks, municipalities, Notified Area Councils (NACs), and other urban local bodies. The initiative seeks to remove inconsistencies in English transliterations that have developed over time and align official spellings more closely with the original Odia names.
The government clarified that the changes are purely orthographic and do not amount to renaming any place. The identities, jurisdictional boundaries, governance structures, and administrative functions of the concerned units will remain unchanged. The revised spellings will only replace the existing English versions used in official records and communications.
Several prominent place names have been updated under the new standardisation exercise. For example, Cuttack will now be written as Kataka, Balasore as Baleshwar, Bolangir as Balangir, Bargarh as Baragada, Sundargarh as Sundaragada, and Keonjhar as Kendujhar. Similarly, Berhampur has been revised to Brahmapur, Jeypore to Jayapur, Nayagarh to Nayagada, and Rourkela to Raurkela.
The notification also includes revised spellings for numerous tahasils, blocks, municipalities and NACs across the state. Officials said the move will help maintain consistency in government documentation while promoting the correct pronunciation of Odia place names.
“The corrections relate solely to the English spellings of the concerned administrative units and shall not be construed as effecting any change in their names,” the notification stated.
The revised spellings will come into effect from the date of publication in the Odisha Gazette, marking an important effort to strengthen Odisha’s cultural and linguistic identity.
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