July 16/2012: The State government seems hell bent on burdening the poor Oriya even further. Today, the farmer is incapable of getting his land tilled, sowed or harvested as people are unavailable to work in villages. The farmer is getting poorer and economically weaker. Small and medium industries are becoming extinct as banks in Orissa refuse to give loans to individual entrepreneurs. That has murdered local enterprise. Government focus is on large and mega projects promoted by industrialists who efficiently exploit mineral wealth of Orissa. Coal blocks are given away dime a dozen to power companies with no corresponding care taken about what is to be done with the massive amounts of fly ash and resultant water and air pollution that is going to choke the people to disease and death. Roads are being broadened spending huge sums from the tax payers’ money.

Bhubaneswar and many other parts of this state have some of the best broad roads compared to most other state capitals. Yet our accident rate is one of the highest in this country because we are not taking care to teach people how to drive nor are we punishing the guilty for extremely dangerous traffic violations such as going against one way on separate lanes. Going by the present run of things, the next ridiculous predicament faced by the average vehicle owning Oriya is even sadder. It seems like the state government’s bureaucrats have a never ending string of surprises that they are capable of springing on the unsuspecting hapless citizens of this state. Word is out that the state’s Transport department now wants that all vehicles, both private and governmental, have to get their registration number plates changed from OR…. to  OD… If this directive would have been for all new registrations, none could have complained.

However, the order says that even old vehicles already bearing the OR registration also have to change their plates. That implies added economic burden on people who have not done any wrong to deserve this punishment.Alas! If this would only result in lesser number of road accident deaths, better traffic conditions and reduced vehicular pollution, everyone would gladly welcome this diktat. Unfortunately, nothing of the sort would come out of this insane move of the government. Except that, the poor 2, 3 and 4 wheeler owners have to cough up more money. Commercial vehicles are also in this loop. In the opinion of most thinking Oriyas, the change in the English spelling of the name of this state does not really hold any credibility. The powers that be do not realize they have become the butt of jokes because of this irrelevant decision.

Had Orissa been changed to Kalinga, Utkal or even Koshala, the step would have had some kind of impact on citizens. For instance, Madras changing to Chennai implied an alteration for the local language users too. However, Orissa turning to Odisha is not only far away from the true pronunciation of the word by the locals but also, it has not impacted the Oriya spelling in any which way. This reminds us about the article by cine star Ms Nandita Das ‘Sorry, I don’t speak Odissi’ (The Week, Oct 16/2011).  The lady has very correctly mentioned about the fact that ‘Never mind the cost of this mindless modification, but why would they call the state Odisha, when Oriyas themselves can’t pronounce ‘sh’? They will continue to call it Odissa. Whether it is Orissa, Odisha or Odissa…..it is not going to change the neglect it (the state) has suffered for decades. What’s in a name, when the rest of the world is not going to need to spell it too often?’

Sadly, our rulers do not seem to know ground realities. Now, this number (registration) plate change decision will upset a few more hundred thousand people. Go ahead, do it.