The Cultural back ground of Rourkela is based on cultural heritage of Sundergarh District which is situated on north western part of Odisha and surrounded by states Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.
In broader sense the culture of Rourkela was actually counted from decade of 1950 to 1960. Though, Rourkela declared as urban area way back in the 1931 after the census, but the development of Rourkela took place after announcement of Public Sector Integrated Steel Plant at Rourkela in the year 1954.
After this announcement sizeable number of population from various parts of the Odisha and India as well coming here. After the establishment of the Steel Plant and formal start of production from Plant in the year 1959 large flow of migrated population from various parts of the country took place till 1970’s. Apart from this sizeable numbers of foreign nationals have also been coming to Rourkela for Steel Plant Maintenance, Production and moderization related work from time to time.
Because of the time to time migration, the culture of Rourkela is not confined to any single culture of a particular area rather it has adopted the pan of Indian cultural heritage and particularly a UNIQUE CULTURE which represents almost every corner of Odisha from all of its reagions. There are number of ethnical socio-cultural events organised with much fun fare by verity of Organistaions throughout the year here including the events organised by different caste, religion, creeds etc people who lives here from different parts of India. Even the Rourkela Steel Plant has involved it self in observing various activities under the Corporate Social Responsibility since last few years.
It is the first cosmopolitan city of odisha, where people of from all the religions and different states like Punjab, Bengal, Bihar, Kerala and Rajasthan have been living here since 1922. But the population was very thin limited and increased to two and half thousand towards 1940. Panposh was declared a Nazrul or urban area in 1936.
The people of different religious community who settled here are also celebrating their religious festivals, in consonance to their social moves. This groups who settled down here to pursuit their professions, had very limited social intercourse with other religious and even linguistically disparity ethnic groups.
The aboriginal communities like Mundas, Orams, Kisans, Khedias, Ho’s etc called Adivasis’s lived in hamlets in groups and remain isolated. Still they are dependable on nature and limited cultivation. Many including their women flock worked as labourers in the mines and quarries, in timer business and other limited construction works. The primary language which is spoken by these groups, is SHADRI and hence the language of the original inhabitants of Rourkela.
Infact the name Rourkela is derived from two SHADRI words , “ROUR” and “KELA” which means “OUR HOME”.