Building the Odia Asmita Edifice, One Brick at a Time

In the first cabinet meeting, minutes after being sworn in as Chief Minister of the first BJP government in Odisha, Mohan Charan Majhi took four major decisions on June 12 last year.

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Two among them – reopening all four gates of Shree Jagannath Temple in Puri and a corpus fund of ₹500 crore for conservation and management of the 12th-century shrine, aimed at boosting Odia Asmita (Odia pride). For Odias, Lord Jagannath is the nerve centre of cultural and social identity.

Three weeks later, as he started working from the CMO in the Lok Seva Bhawan, Majhi announced a slew of measures for uplifting Odia Asmita. He mandated Odia for all official works and promised to revive, safeguard and glorify Odia language, culture and heritage.

‘Asmita’ has been the buzzword in the state ever since BJP’s aggressive campaign proved to be the game-changer in the political churn that dethroned the two-decade-old BJD government in 2024.

Less than a year into its tenure, the BJP government has swiftly and decisively moved to translate the electoral promise into action. Determined to uphold the cultural, linguistic, and historical legacy, the government has launched a host of initiatives and a lot more are in the pipeline.

While a dedicated corpus fund of ₹200 crore has been set up exclusively for the promotion and preservation of Odia identity, a blueprint has been prepared to spend around ₹1,000 crore this fiscal to support the efforts, focusing on the art, architecture, literature, culture, and heritage.