Odisha Day (Utkal Divas) celebrated on April 1

Key facts

• Odisha Day is celebrated on April 1 every year to mark the formation of Odisha as a separate province on April 1, 1936.
• Odisha became the first state in India to be formed on a linguistic identity.
• The Utkal Sammilani, formed by Madhusudan Das, led the movement for unification of Odia-speaking regions into a single territory.
• The first conference of Utkal Sammilani was held in Cuttack in December 1903.
• In 1928, a four-member subcommittee headed by Clement Attlee was formed to examine the demand for a separate Odia-speaking province.
• Maharaja Krushna Chandra Gajapati advocated for a separate province during the Round Table Conference on November 16, 1930.
• A boundary select committee headed by Samuel O’Donnel submitted its report in 1932 in favour of a separate Odisha province.
• Other key leaders in the movement included Gopabandhu Das, Pandit Nilakantha Das, Fakir Mohan Senapati, Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo, and Vikram Dev Burma.
• The name of the state was officially changed from Orissa to Odisha and its language from Oriya to Odia after the 113th Constitutional Amendment Bill was passed in March 2011.
• The state Legislative Assembly had passed a resolution on August 28, 2008, to facilitate the change of name.