The Odisha government on Monday revised the English spellings of 64 places, including districts, sub-divisions, tehsils, blocks, and urban bodies, effectively changing the spelling of the ‘Millennium City’ Cuttack to Kataka.
Similarly, Balasore has been renamed ‘Baleshwar’ in English records, while Rourkela will now be written as ‘Raurkela’.
Officials clarified that these revisions are strictly limited to English spellings and do not change the actual names of the administrative units.
According to a notification issued by the Revenue and Disaster Management department, the modification of names is done to preserve Odisha’s linguistic and cultural identity and restoring and standardising the English spellings of the names in the state in conformity with Odia phonetics.
“The corrections effected herein relate solely to the English spellings of the concerned administrative units and shall not be construed as effecting any change in their names,” the statement said.
This initiative aims to correct 64 colonial-era “distorted” English spellings across 26 districts.
Earlier this month, the state cabinet cleared the proposal, noting that many locations were still officially recorded with “anglicised or misspelt” names that do not align with Odia pronunciation and etymology.
As examples of the phonetic mismatch, officials pointed out that “Aul” will now be correctly written as “Aali.” Similarly, “Balasore” is replaced with “Baleshwar”.
The most prominent changes following the notification remain the transformation of Cuttack to “Kataka” in place of Cuttack and Rourkela to “Raurkela.”
The spelling overhauls will also impact several other district headquarters and major towns to better reflect local pronunciation.
This initiative is expected to streamline official records, maps, signage, and state communications, eliminating the confusion of inconsistent, anglicised spellings while honouring the phonetic roots of Odia names.
