By Bizodisha Bureau, Bhubaneswar, September 4, 2015 : One of India’s key missile testing facilities – Wheeler Island – located off the coast of Odisha, about 150 kilometres from here, has been named after former President APJ Abdul Kalam.

The Integrated Test Range maintaining a missile testing facility is located in the island.

Kalam passed away in July this year following a massive cardiac arrest while delivering a lecture at a college in Shillong triggering a nationwide outpouring of grief.

“You would be glad to know that the state government has renamed the Wheeler Island in the name of the late president Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. He will inspire our youngsters to work with dedication for scientific research. It is a humble tribute of Odisha to the People’s President,” chief minister Naveen Patnaik said here announcing the decision to rename the Wheeler Island as A P J Abudl Kalam Island.

The Island is being used as a missile-testing facility by the Union government. The maiden successful test fire of the land-to-land Prithvi Missile was conducted from the mainland and it landed on the then uninhabited Wheeler Island on November 30, 1993. It was first named after an English commandant Lieutenant Wheeler.

Popularly known as ‘Missile Man’, Kalam led the scientific team that developed missiles carrying India’s nuclear warheads. He became a national folk hero after helping oversee nuclear tests in 1998 that solidified India’s status as a nuclear weapons state. India’s first atomic test was in 1974.

Mr Patnaik said his father, former chief minister Biju Patnaik and Dr Kalam, had ties that went back to the days when the President was a scientist with the DRDO.

“It was Biju babu who allotted the historic Wheeler Island to the Ministry of Defence on the request of Dr Kalam in 1993.”

During his numerous visits to the test range, Kalam was inspired to pen his book ‘My Journey’. He has also described the Wheeler Island as his ‘Theatre of Action’.
Earlier in the day, Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi was renamed as APJ Abdul Kalam Road.