CUTTACK: Even as the Centre is set to pilot Orissa (Alteration of Name) Bill, 2010, to formalise rechristening of the State as Odisha in the ensuing Monsoon session of Parliament, senior BJD leader and Cuttack MP Bhartruhari Mahtab has called for substituting the latter with “the correct spelling” Odissa. The word Odisha is phonetically wrong as in Oriya the spelling of ‘talavessa’ is not ‘sha’ but ‘ssa’, he reasoned. The prime examples are Odissi dance, which is not spelt as Odishi, and Bhubaneswar not Bhubaneshwar. The basic purpose of the Bill is to correctly spell the name of the State as one spells it in vernacular language. And by changing it to Odisha, the very purpose would be defeated, Mahtab told mediapersons here today. The parliamentarian insisted that his suggestion was only confined to the English spelling of the State as it should be. “When after a long 74 years, steps are being taken to correct the spelling, it should be done in the best possible form, lest Orissa should wait for another 75 years,” he said. Though the State has forwarded the resolution passed by the Assembly to the Centre and the Bill has been tabled in Parliament, Mahtab has pressed for necessary steps to correct the spelling before it is passed. He has written to Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Union Home Minister P Chidambaram in this connection with both promising action. The Union Government had already introduced the Constitutional Amendment Bill for renaming the State to Odisha and the name of official language from Oriya to Odiya in Parliament.
