Bhubaneswar:  The Delhi Cabinet today approved a proposal to set up an Odia academy to promote the regional language and cultural diversity in the national capital.

The Cabinet has decided to set up 15 new regional language academies across the city including the Odia.

Apart from Odia, the languages selected for the new academies are Bengali, Marathi, Gujarati, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Assamese, Kashmiri, Marwari, Haryanvi, Garwahali, Kumaoni and Jaunsari. An academy for foreign languages will also be opened.

"Delhi is a culturally rich city where people from all parts of the country live and work. It is this diversity that forms Delhi's vibrant and cosmopolitan culture," Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia, who also holds charge of the Art, Culture and Language department, told the Delhi Assembly.

The proposal was pending for long before the Cabinet.

Currently, six language academies -- Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Sanskrit and Maithili-Bhojpuri -- are running in Delhi.

However, as many as 15 posts are vacant each in the Hindi and Sanskrit academies, 38 in Punjabi and seven posts in the Maithili-Bhojpuri academy.

According to a reply given by Sisodia in the Delhi Assembly on Monday, no advertisement for the vacant posts has been issued since 2011.

The Urdu academy, with 20 vacant posts, wrote to the Delhi Subordinate Services Selection Board (DSSSB) in April 2017 regarding the vacancies. A reminder was also sent in July 2017.

The Urdu academy, having a sanctioned strength of 55, is operating with only 35 members.

Also, 19 posts are vacant at the Delhi Archives, a repository of non-current records of the Delhi government. The department also wrote to the DSSSB in September 2015 regarding the vacant posts.

(With IANS Inputs)