Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Friday renamed Wheeler Island in Bhadrak district after former President APJ Abdul Kalam, who passed away recently.
There was a growing demand across sections of society to rename the island after Kalam, who described the island as his “Theatre of Action”.
Wheeler Island, located off the Odisha coast, is used as a missile-testing facility by the Union Government.
The maiden successful test fire of the land-to-land Prithvi missile was conducted from the mainland and it landed on the then uninhabited Wheeler Island on November 30, 1993.
The island was named after an English Commandant, lieutenant Wheeler.