Buckling under pressure from the Odia Bhasha Sangram Samiti, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Wednesday constituted a five-member Ministerial Committee to implement the Orissa Official language Act 1954 to use Odia as official language in the State.
While Industries and School and Mass Education Minister Debi Prasad Mishra will head the committee, Parliament Affairs Minister Bikram Keshari Arukh, Information and Public Relations Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak, law Minister Arun Kumar Sahoo and Information Technology Minister Pranab Prakash Das are the members.
With this decision, the Odia Bhasha Sangram Samiti, which had been staging a fast-un-to-death agitation demanding use of Odia as official language for the last eight days, came to an end. Minister Arun Sahoo offered fruit juice to the hunger strikers.