Utkal Hiteisini Samaj at Paralakhemundi. Telegraph picture

Berhampur, April 1: The building of Utkal Hiteisini Samaj, an organisation that had played an important role in the formation of a separate Odisha province, is at present in a dilapidated state.

The structure at Paralakhemundi, built more than a century ago, stands with broken doors and windows, a rusty tin roof and a thick layer of dust on the floor.

Renowned litterateur and the first graduate of undivided Ganjam Shyam Sundar Rajguru had established the Samaj in 1885 at Paralakhemundi. One of the greatest achievements of the organisation was implementation of the usage of the Odia language instead of Telugu in the government offices of undivided Ganjam since 1890.

Pandit Nilakantha Das had inaugurated the present building at Bhandari Sahi in 1956.

Secretary of Utkal Hitaisini Samaj Purna Chandra Mahapatra said: “Our organisation is still engaged in social, economic and cultural activities. But no MLA or MP has sanctioned a single pie for the maintenance of the historic building from his or her local area development funds. The state culture department has also shown no interest. We are collecting donations made by members to meet the maintenance costs,” he said.

“Utkal Hitaisini Samaj had submitted a charter of demands to introduce Odia as an official language in government offices with signatures of one lakh people to the then Ganjam collector at Kanchili in 1889. It took three years to convince the public and put their signatures on it from 1886 to 1889,” said Mahapatra, quoting their records.

Though the governor of Madras Presidency had declared Odia as an official language in the government offices in 1872, the order was not being implemented properly and Telugu was mostly used in Ganjam offices, he said.

Dibakar Patnaik, who has authored some research papers in Odia, said the Samaj had sent its delegation to the Congress session in Madras in 1892, Pune Session in 1894 and Calcutta Session in 1896 to highlight the Odia language, culture and their problems at the national level.

“This prompted a meeting of the Odia leaders, who called for amalgamation of Odia speaking areas in Cuttack on May 10, 1895,” he said.