Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today announced that land would be provided to start a branch of Sahitya Kala academy in the state and also that the monetary reward for artists who win awards in the fields of art and culture would be hiked.
"People only see Mumbai as the financial capital of the country. But the city is also the art, literature, theatre and cinema capital of the country. In 1857, with the inception of Sir JJ School of Art, a new era started in this field and after that artists have got immense respect in Mumbai," Fadnavis said.
The Chief Minister was addressing a gathering here after Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled a plaque to mark the inauguration of the new building complex of the Bombay Art Society.
Also Read
Fadnavis praised NCP president Sharad Pawar, who was present on the occassion, for providing the land to Bombay Art Society to develop a complex.
"If they (Bombay Art Society) expect us to start a branch of Sahitya Kala academy in the state, I assure that the government would definitely provide land for it," he said.
He said art and literature has an important place in Maharashtra, and the government has therefore decided to increase monetary reward to child artists and others who win awards in the field.
"Money does not matter but still child artists only get Rs 500 and other artists get Rs 25,000. After I spoke to the (state) Cultural Affairs Minister (Vinod Tawde), we have now decided that child artists would get Rs 10,000 and others would receive Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh," he said.
Meanwhile, Pawar, while addressing the audience, said Mumbai is a "treasure" for artists and asked the government to provide them with housing facilities.
"When the state was formed, there was a time when Chief Ministers like Yashwantrao Chavan and Vasantrao Naik provided land to artists where they could live. The (present) government needs to continue doing that," he said.
Another prominent Maratha leader and BJP MLC Vinayak Mete
said the morchas being taken out by the community across were not against dalit community.
To counter rallies by Marathas, many dalit organisations have begun staging morchas in Nanded and other parts of the state.
Mete clarified the rallies by Marathas are not led by any political party or political leader.
"It would be wrong to say that these morchas are being sponsored by the NCP," he said.
Referring to SC/ST Atrocities Act, the Shiv Sangram organisation leader said dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar had guaranteed the right to air one's opinion on any Act if its provisions are hurting someone.
Earlier, Bharipa-Bahujan Mahasangh leader and Ambedkar's grandson Prakash Ambedkar urged his dalit community to exercise restraint and not to carry out parallel counter morchas.
He said "RSS is deliberately trying to mislead dalit community by arguing that the morchas being taken out by the Maratha community are against them."
Hinting that some disgruntled Maratha leaders could be behind organising the rallies, Ambedkar said, "the heat of the government probe into cooperative sector is being felt by some. A handful of 159 families control cooperative sector, whereas others from Maratha community have no toehold in cooperative sector.
