Bhubaneswar, Sept. 19: The Odia Language Implementation Committee of the state government will assess the number of files dealt with in Odia at the secretariat.

The committee, headed by chief secretary Aditya Prasad Padhi, took the decision yesterday. The committee was set up last year to monitor enforcement of Odia in the official work. In September last year, the Odisha Official Language (Amendment) Bill was passed in the Assembly, enforcing Odia as the state's official language.

The committee, which had its fourth meeting yesterday, was informed that Odia language had been uploaded in the Odisha Secretariat Work Automation System (Oswas) and the Indies software had been installed in the system.

The chief secretary directed the officials to review the use of Odia in the official work and assess the number of files done in Odia.

Odia language activists, on the other hand, have been alleging that hardly any file was being dealt in Odia. 'The bureaucrats at the state secretariat are not at all keen to use Odia,' said activist Subhash Chandra Pattanaik. BJD's former Rajya Sabha member and convener of Odisha Bhasha Suraksha Samiti Baisnab Parida has accused the bureaucrats of being keen to 'thwart the enforcement of Odia in administrative work'.

The Odisha Official Language Act, 1954, was enacted for declaring Odia as the medium to be used for official purposes in the state. But the rules were not framed till last year to enforce the provision. After prolonged agitations, the 1954 Act was amended last year empowering the state government to make rules for enforcement of Odia as official language.

The Telegraph had carried a story on August 13 last year highlighting how the administration was unprepared at the ground level to enforce Odia in official work.

The first meeting of the committee, held on August 18 the same year, had decided to install Odia font in the Oswas software and come up with a revised edition of the Prashasan Sabdakosh and Bhasha Sahachar, containing the simple Odia meanings of difficult technical and administrative terms in English.