Muralidhar Tali (1918-1997) Dharmapada Awardee was born in the village of Mahantipada, Sambalpur, Odisha in 1918. He had taken admission in Govt. School of Art and Crafts Kolkata in Painting and Graphic Art. He went to Cuttack in 1946 and began his career as a designer in the Industrial Dept. (Crafts Section) in 1948 and finally joined in the Handloom and Textile Dept. Govt. of India in 1957 and retired as an Asst. Director in design from the Weavers Service Centre, Bhubaneswar in 1975 and died in 1997.