The Union Cabinet today gave its approval for classifying Odia as classical language.
So far, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam have been declared as classical languages.
There has been demand for declaring Odia as a classical language which is one of oldest languages. It has no resemblance to Hindi, Sanskrit, Bengali and Telugu.
Once a language is declared classical, it gets financial assistance for setting up a centre of excellence for the study of that language and also opens up an avenue for two major awards for scholars of eminence.
Besides, the University Grants Commission can be requested to create - to begin with at least in Central Universities - a certain number of professional chairs for classical languages for scholars of eminence in the language.