The last week of May was an extremely sad period for the Utkal Sammilani. Dr Bhabagrahi Mahapatra passed away on May 26 and Er Amarendra Das next day. After the 2002 election, Basanta Kumar Panigrahi was the president, Dr Bhabagrahi Mahapatra the vice-president and Amarendra Das the general secretary of Utkal Sammilani and they continued till 2008.
In that period, our State Government sanctioned funds to the Utkal Sammilani towards the improvement of Odia education in the Odia-speaking tracks outside the State.
In the 2008 election, Dr Mahapatra was elected as the president and I as the treasurer. In the leadership of Dr Mahapatra, many goals were achieved. Odia got the status of the second language in Jharkhand following repeated demands by the Utkal Sammilani.
Dr Mahapatrawas was the president till 2012. He was a very simple but strong man. He was born in 1929, had his Matriculation 1944 and got admitted to the GM College in I.Sc. where he was in the first batch of the college and completed it in 1946.
He completed his B.Sc. course in 1948 from the Ravenshaw College. He started his service life in 1949 from the Hirakud Dam Project. In 1955, he was appointed in Rourkela Steel Plant of Hindustan Steel Ltd (now Steel Authority of India). He retired from his job in 1987. Within his service period, he completed an M.Sc. course from the REC, now called NIT, and got a PhD degree from the Sambalpur University.
He was associated with many socio-cultural associations like Utkal Sammilani, Biswa Odia Sammilani, Nila Chakra, Utkal Silpa Parichalana Samiti, Rourkela Steel Plant Retired Employees’ Association, Rourkela Environment Society and Rourkela Thinkers’ Forum.
From 1983, Dr Mahapatra was involved in Utkal Sammilani. He has written his autobiography “My Three Decades in Public Sector”, which is very popular among engineering students and also among intellectuals. Nobody lives in the world forever, but his work will inspire us to always remember him.
(The writer is president, Utkal Sammilani, Mancheswar Industrial Estate Branch, Bhubaneswar)