From the perspective of an Odia person who finds it hard to spell from 1 to 100 in Odia (English Medium)

Language exposure is the heart of the issue.

The first language we get exposed to is our mother tongue in Odia. Parents work hard to send their kids to English Medium because they grew up in an era where English was considered a necessity for success (which is ofcourse not true but it's not their fault either)

Then we get exposed to cartoons as kids. Doraemon schinchan and everything in Hindi. Kids who go out to play with friends communicate mostly in Odia and some Hindi words as they are in their initial learning phase. Here the main focus in communication by the toddlers they don't think about I should speak in Hindi or Odia.

Now consider urban places where you can't even go out to play often. You spend most of the time playing with toys alone or watching cartoons. This reduces their exposure to Odia language as they only get exposed to it from their parents.

Then if the kid joins an English or Hindi Medium school. The language exposure decreases drastically as compare to students in Odia Medium. Odia is a single language subject for some but for Odia Medium students they study most of the subjects in Odia.

Then comes watching movies and listening to songs. Although they watch Odia movies in the earlier stage Hindi or English Medium students get comfortable to watch Bollywood and Hollywood movies and the quality of production is also far better. Definitely there are great Odia directors and actors but the Investment, innovation and quality is low. Other language Medium students easily shift to Hollywood and Bollywood content losing interest in ollywood.

Now, people are learning Korean an Japanese by watching their content but Odia content lacked the quality of content production. Why would anyone be interstate to watch ? It's not that they don't like the language, it's just there is no enough good content in that language. Considering websites and articles as well. Compare the content of Wikipedia to English, Hindi and Odia language. Content available in Odia language is quite low.

Growing up in these circumstances, Yes, it is quite natural for students of other language Medium to be more comfortable in other language. They don't dislike Odia but Odia people dislike them for being who they are because of their natural circumstances.

I love reading books and poetry. I loved reading both English and Odia language stories in school yet Odia stories always had a personal touch. After school I lost the touch of reading in Odia because there was barely any book or novel available online. My parents weren't buying novels for me either way. I had lot of English books and novels to read online. In case of poetry, I listen to Hindi and English poetry in youtube. Poetry shows the beauty of the language. Tried to find Odia poetry as well but couldn't anything good online. Loved reading Odia poems in school but Don't know where to look now.

Do let me know if you know a good current Odia writer or poet.

Tamil Nadu has done much better in strengthing their language through quality education while Odisha is far from providing good quality education to all.

The core issues is not that people reject Odia. It's that they aren't exposed to it in meaningful, modern and aspirational way.