Bhubaneswar: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday urged Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to take steps for inclusion of Sambalpuri/Kosali and Ho languages in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution.
"Sambalpuri/Kosali is the mother tongue of about 75 lakh people spread over 10 contiguous districts of Western Odisha. It has been put to writing for more than 50 years, is a medium of education in non-formal schools and has a robust oral tradition of many centuries in the form of folk music and folk literature," Patnaik said in a letter to Shinde.
Similarly, Ho language is the mother tongue of more than a million tribal people living on the borders of Odisha and Jharkhand and also satisfies majority of the criteria required for inclusion in the 8th Schedule to the Constitution," said Patnaik in the letter.
"I would urge upon the Union Home Ministry to consider our proposal favourably at the earliest, which will go a long way in fulfilling the long cherished linguistic aspirations of the people of western and northern Odisha," he said.
There have been demands for a long time for inclusion of the two languages in the 8th Schedule to the Constitution and the Centre is understood to be considering the matter, sources said.