Former vice-chancellor of Biju Patnaik University of Technology Omkar Mohanty speaks at the discussion in Bhubaneswar. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, May 11: Educationists, linguists, scholars and litterateurs joined hands together and urged the state government today to take steps to establish a central institute for Odia and an Odia University.

Odia became the sixth language in India to get classical status following an approval from the Union cabinet on February 20. Other languages in the league are Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam.

Taking part in a discussion titled “Classical Odia in Archives and Epigraphy and Odia University’’, linguist Debiprasanna Pattanayak said: “We suggest that the state government should approach the Centre to follow the Tamil Nadu model of a central institute in classical Odia under the ministry of human resource development.”

The discussion was organised by National Archives (eastern zone) and the Institute for Odia Studies and Research. Pattanayak had written to the chief secretary suggesting an institute on the lines of the Tamil Nadu model.

In his letter, he also suggested that the governor be its visitor and a person of high calibre research background in culture, literature, art, history, archaeology or anthropology be its chairman. A distinguished board of members under an able director may oversee the day-to-day functioning of the institute dealing with classical Odia. States such as Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka have their language institutes, but they are operating under the Central Institute of Indian Languages, Mysore.

“With an autonomous status under the human resources development ministry, the institute will have greater flexibility and take up research activities, translation and cultural links and research,’’ said Subrat Kumar Prusty, member secretary of the Institute for Odia Studies and Research.

Prusty, a research scholar who was part of the team that made a documentation that was submitted to the Centre last year, said: “We want to request the state government to expedite the process of establishing an Odia university. Odisha is the only state with a rich linguistic tradition, but without a university in its mother tongue.”

Information technology secretary Madhusudan Padhee, vice-chancellors, professors and senior faculty members of various universities and colleges attended the session.

Litterateur Sitakanta Mohapatra hoped that there would be no difficulty in establishing an Odia university and Central institute for research and documentation on classical Odia.