Bhubaneswar, June 24: Utkal University is taking a number of initiatives to promote Odia in the state.

This year, for the first time the Odia department of the varsity published the postgraduate admission results in Odia. Also, all the notices from the department will be issued both in Odia and English.

"We have asked all our officials and faculty members of the department to write all notices in Odia. All the transactions that we make with the government and the officials will also be done in Odia apart from English," said head of the department Santosh Kumar Tripathy.

"We are trying to give a push to the language and that can't be done overnight. So, these are steps towards the same. Earlier, we had never published results in Odia. Seeing this, the applicants have applauded our initiative," said software developer Chandrasekhar Biswal, who handles the varsity website.

The Odia department will also provide extra classes to the students every Thursday to help them prepare for various examinations.

"Often many of our students fail to apply for the exams because they face a lot of problems in understanding the questions. There still remains a lack of understanding difficult Odia words among the students. So, we will prepare them for the same, so that more students get into research work," said Tripathy.

The department is also planning to initiate the triangular process of teaching from this year that involves regular sessions among the teachers, writers and the students.

"This process of imparting knowledge would be quite helpful for the students as it would give them an opportunity to learn about the recent trends in the world of Odia literature," said Tripathy.

Plans are also on to impart teachings through projectors and acquainting the students with various web-based fonts to write in Odia. The varsity is also planning to tie up with the Odisha Sahitya Akademi for conducting literary meets in the varsity.