Bhubaneswar: Stung by the criticism of neglecting Odia, the Naveen Patnaik government on Tuesday decided to carve out a separate department for promotion of the language, its literature and culture. The tourism and culture department was bifurcated to create the new ministry.

The government has also made it mandatory that all signage of offices, shops and establishments will be in Odia from April. It has threatened penal action for those violating the rule. A source in the government said that necessary amendments would be made to the Odisha Official language Act, 1956.

These decisions were taken at a special sitting of the state cabinet in Puri where the BJD celebrated its 20th foundation day meeting on Tuesday.

The move is seen as an apparent bid to silence critics accusing the government of neglecting Odia.

The state government has also decided to constitute a heritage cabinet to ensure conservation and promotion of Odisha's culture, heritage, language and literature.

The other major decisions include punishing officials who will not use Odia in official work and also rewarding those implementing the government order.

It has also been decided to hold the World Odia Language Conference once every five years to promote and popularise the language across the globe.

At the special sitting of the cabinet in Puri on Tuesday, the government has decided to waive off tuition fee for those taking up Odia at the degree and postgraduate courses, introduction of scholarship at the higher secondary and degree level for excellence in Odia language and literature and encouragement for undertaking research.

The number of PhD seats will be increased in Odia language and literature and if necessary, the more posts of readers will be created.

Chief minister Naveen Patnaik and his government had earlier come under severe criticism for not enforcing Odia in right earnest.

Even BJD leader and former Rajya Sabha member Baisnab Charan Parida had targeted Naveen's deficient knowledge of Odia and dared him to step down if he failed to learn the language.

Parida, who heads the Bhasa Surakhya Sammilani, an organisation working for the development of Odia, had said on October 11 at Sambalpur: "Those who cannot speak Odia, have no right to rule the state. Without knowing Odia how can the chief minister understand the problems of people? Is this is not an insult to Odisha and its four crore people."