The Odisha government has renamed a village formerly known as ‘Bilung’ to ‘Rangabati Bilung’. This is situated under Bamra Tahasil of the Sambalpur district.
The name is derived from the famous folk song ‘Rangabati’ and is of special significance as the village is the native place of Padma Shri Mitrabhanu Gountia, the lyricist of the song.
In a notification issued by the Revenue and Disaster Management Department under the state government, the renaming is in effect from July 22. The move came right after receiving a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Rangabati is one of the most popular folk songs of Odisha. The song received national acclamation after popular music show Coke Studio presented a remake, sang by Sona Mohapatra.
Gountia has written over 1000 Sambalpuri songs, ‘Rangabati’ being the most popular. He received the Padmashree Award in 2020. He was also presented with the Odisha State Sangeet Natak Academy Award and the Akashvani National Award for music.
The song ‘Rangabati’ was first recorded in All India Radio (AIR), Sambalpur in 1975-76. Receiving wide popularity, the Indian Record Manufacturing Company Ltd. (INRECO) also recorded this song in disc format in 1976, which was released in 1978-79. The music composer for this song is Late Prabhudatta Pradhan. The original version was sung by Jitendra Haripal and Krishna Patel.
Rangabati has a reputation of being re-created in many other regional languages of India, gaining immense popularity in regions especially that of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar, as well as Chhatisgarh.