By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 24, 2015 : In a bleated move, Odisha government has cleared setting up of an Odia chair in the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi.

The decision to have a chair for research in Odia language was one of the nine resolutions passed by the ruling Biju Janata Dal executive committee on Wednesday.

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday gave his nod to setting up of an Odia chair to encourage research and growth of Odia language, culture and literature three years after the proposal was mooted.

“Our government is quite serious about development of Odia language and culture. The BJD executive committee passed a resolution to this effect on Wednesday and chief minster Naveen Patnaik also has endorsed it by passing the order to have an Odia chair in JNU at the earliest. Besides, the government will leave no stone turned to get recognistion of Odiay language as classical language”, BJD leader, Tesewar Pardia on Thursday told ‘Bizodisha.com”.

The government had came under sharp criticism for the government’s indifference to the issue for so long.

The Odia chair, to be set up under the Centre of Indian Languages, would further develop Odia language which has been granted the classical language tag.

Odisha governemnt three years ago had sent a proposal for an Odia chair to the JNU authorities. In response, in a letter to then Odisha chief secretary on May 8, 2012, JNU authorities had proposed the setting up of an Odia Chair, for a one time contribution of Rs 4 crore for the management of the Chair.

The setting up of the Chair would give an opportunity to the students of Indian and other language centers to know more about the Odia language and literature and also facilitate translation of literature of other languages into Odia.

Presently, JNU has Chairs for Hindi, Urdu, Tamil and Bengali languages.