An organisation observes International Mother Tongue Day on Monday at a school in Rourkela. Picture by Uttam Kumar Pal

Bhubaneswar, Feb. 21: The state government portal is soon going to be bilingual.

Officials at the Oriya Bhasha Pratishthaan (a government body working for the popularisation of the Oriya language) here are busy translating the data in Orissa government portal into Oriya language.

Currently, the website is available in English. “The work was entrusted to us by the Orissa Computer Application Centre. “Our people are working on translating the data of all departments from English to Oriya so that everyone is able to access it,” said director-in-charge of the pratishthaan, Pradipta Barik.

Similarly, all 30 districts of the state will be translated to Oriya. “The work will be completed very shortly and then we will be entrusting it to the Orissa Computer Application Centre, which will do the web hoisting and possibly launch it on April 1, the Orissa formation day,” said Barik. Meanwhile, the Pratishaan continues to provide training to government employees to hone their language skills in Oriya for the proper implementation of the language in official work

Following the decision of the state government to make Oriya the official language last April, the pratisthan has been providing training to the government representatives them to learn Oriya meanings of English words so that they can put it to use in their daily correspondence to other government offices across the state. While government orders in the state will be issued both in Oriya and English, correspondence between government offices across the state will largely be in Oriya.

“We have already covered 22 districts,” said Barik. At least 10 persons have been selected from each district and are being given training in the capital.

“We are roping in experts for this purpose,” said he. For the remaining districts, official communication has been already sent to the concerned collectors asking for the list of participants,” he said.

However, the role of pratishthaan remains every limited.

“We cannot touch all the government offices and institutions. It largely depends on the people we train. It is how they take up the matter in their respective regions.

“It needs commitment,” said Barik, adding that a proper monitoring system needed to be developed if the drive was to be seriously pursued.

Bhubaneswar, February 21: The Orissa government portal is soon going to be bilingual.

Officials at the Oriya Bhasha Pratishthaan (a government body working fr the popularization of the oriya language) here are busy translating the data in Orissa government portal into Oriya language.

Currently, the website is available in English. “The work was entrusted to us by the Orissa Computer Application Centre . Our people are working on translating the data from all departments from English to oriya so that everyone is able to access it,” said Director in charge of the Pratishthaan Pradipta Barik. Similarly all the 30 districts will be translated to Oriya.

“The work will be completed very shortly and then we will be entrusting it to the Orissa Computer Application Centre which will do the web hoisting and possibly launch it on April 1., the Orissa formation day,” said BarikMeanwhile the Pratishaan continues to provide training to government employees for honing their language skills in Oriya for the proper implementation of the language in official work

Following the decision of the state government to make Oriya the official language last April , the Pratisthan has been providing training to the government representatives them to learn Oriya meanings of English words so that they can put it to use in their daily correspondence to other government offices across the state. While government orders in the state would, be issued both in Oriya and English, correspondence between government offices across the State will largely be in Oriya.

“We have already covered 22 districts,” informed Barik. At least 10 persons are selected from each district and being provided training at the state capital. “We are roping in experts for the purpose,” said he. For the remaining districts, official communication has been already sent to the concerned collectors asking fro the list of participants.,” said he.

However the role of Pratishthaan remains every limited. “We cannot touch all the government offices and institutions. It largely depends on the people we train. It is how they take up the matter in their respective regions. It needs a strong commitment,” said Barik adding that a proper monitoring system needs to be developed if the drive has to be seriously pursued.