The Oriya daily Dharitri was started on November 24 1974 by the Samajbadi Society from Bhubaneswar, the capital city of Orissa, India. During 1986, Dharitri started web offset printing. The real growth of Dharitri started during late eighties and early nineties. This is the only newspaper of Orissa which caters to both urban and rural, young and upwardly mobile readers and also to the cream population of Orissa. This is the reason for which Dharitri is both quantitatively and qualitatively No.1 not only in the capital city of Bhubaneswar but also in a majority of the districts and towns of the state. Dharitri is, today, the largest daily in Cuttack from where the oldest newspaper of the state emanates. Dharitri is the only newspaper in Orissa which provides different special feature pages to its readers, such as:
Monday : "Health and Science"
Tuesday : "Nari" the special page for women carrying articles on social problems, modelling and fashion designing, beauty care, health, education & civil rights
Wednesday : "Krushi Jeevan" a special page on agriculture
Thursday : "Vichitra" page on entertainment and film and "Yuva Dharitri" page for the youth and the young
Friday : "Krida" - page on sports
Saturday : "Pilanka Dharitri" the special page for children.
Sunday : Chhutidina
Tuesday to Friday & Sunday : Buisness Page
Fortnight : Automobile Page
Everyday : Metro Page & Phoorsat page
With all these packages, Dharitri has got an additional feature to make itself even more special and that is the bilingual business page everyday except Sunday. This page has created a sizable readership within the non Oriya reading community residing in Orissa. Due to these attractive features, Dharitri has achieved 150% readership growth as seen in the National Readership Survey( NRS) VI, which is the highest in the country. Being the only neutral publication in the State, Dharitri enjoys the trust and confidence of the people of Orissa.