BHUBANESWAR: Ahead of the elections to two newly created Sambalpur and Rourkela municipal corporations, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday reiterated the State Government’s demand before the Centre for inclusion of Sambalpuri/Kosali and Ho languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
In a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, the Chief Minister said the State Government has already submitted a proposal in this regard basing on the recommendations of an expert committee.
“It may be reiterated that Sambalpuri/Kosali is the mother tongue of more than 7.5 million people in Western Odisha and is spoken for many centuries. It is used as a medium of teaching in non-formal schools now,” he said.
The Chief Minister said Ho is the mother tongue of more than a million of tribal people living in many districts on the Odisha and Jharkhand border.
In a bid to woo the people of Western Odisha and tribals in North Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) had announced in its manifesto for the 2014 polls that the party will pressurise the Centre for inclusion of Kosali and Ho languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
The Chief Minister had made a similar demand on March 1, 2014 to the then Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde. Inclusion of Kosali and Ho languages in the Eighth Schedule is a long standing demand of the people of these areas.