Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Government has decided to set up a Commission for Preservation and Promotion of Tribal Languages of Scheduled Tribes of the State.
A proposal in this regard has been approved at the State Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday.
The Commission aims at preserving and promoting 21 tribal languages in Odisha. It will encourage multilingual education, documenting and preserving tribal languages, promoting the use of those languages, protecting linguistic rights among several enriching activities for the development of the tribal languages.
In the education system under the Multilingual Education (MLE) programme, all 21 recognized tribal languages by the State are included.
The Commission will also work towards the inclusion of tribal languages like Ho, Mundari, Kui and Saora in the 8th Schedule of the Indian Constitution by pursuing with the Centre which has not included these languages in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution despite several initiatives by the Nabin Sarkar.
The Cabinet passed a resolution for inclusion of 169 communities in the ST list of Odisha.