Bhubaneswar, June 22: In a landmark step to strengthen Odisha’s linguistic identity and ensure greater consistency in official records, the state government on Monday issued a notification standardising the English spellings of administrative place names in accordance with their Odia pronunciation.

The Revenue and Disaster Management Department stated that the revised spellings will apply to districts, sub-divisions, tahasils, blocks, municipalities, NACs and other urban local bodies across the state. The initiative seeks to correct historical transliteration inconsistencies and make English spellings more closely match the way names are pronounced in Odia.

The government clarified that the exercise does not involve renaming any place or changing the identity of administrative units. It only revises the English spellings used in official documents and communications.

Under the new standardisation, several well-known places will see spelling changes. 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 will be spelled Brahmapur, Jeypore as Jayapur and Nayagarh as Nayagada.

Officials said the changes will come into force after publication in the Odisha Gazette. The government emphasized that the move will not affect administrative boundaries, governance structures or jurisdictional functions and is intended solely to promote linguistic accuracy, cultural preservation and uniformity in official records across Odisha.

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