Maharashtra's Budget for Financial Year 2021 to be Presented on March 6

Mumbai: The Maha Vikas Aghadi government in Maharashtra will present its maiden budget on March 6, while the legislature will hold a discussion on women's safety during the session and also take up a bill to make Marathi compulsory in all schools in the state.

The Business Advisory Committee (BAC) of the state legislature on Monday finalised the agenda for the budget session, which will begin on February 24 and end on March 20. As per the committee's decision, the budget session will be nearly four-week long and have a total of 18 working days.

The state's budget for the financial year 2020-21 will be presented in the assembly on March 6. This will be the first budget of the three-party MVA government which took office on November 28.

It was learnt from officials that the committee also decided to hold a discussion in the legislature on March 5 on the issue of women's safety in the state. The discussion will take place in the wake of the gruesome incident in Wardha district's Hinganghat town where a 25-year-old woman lecturer was set ablaze allegedly by her stalker in early February and she died a week later.

The BAC meeting was attended by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, his deputy Ajit Pawar, assembly speaker Nana Patole, council chairman Ramraje Naik-Nimbalkar along with group leaders from both ruling and opposition parties.

On the first day of the session, the Thackeray-led government will introduce a bill for making Marathi compulsory in all schools, irrespective of their medium of teaching, the officials said.

The same day, the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government will also bring a resolution in the legislature to accord the status of classical language to Marathi, they said. Once approved by the legislature, the resolution will be sent to the Union government for its nod. The government will introduce a total of five bills and table as many ordinances during the budget session, the officials said.

At the meeting, BJP leader and former minister Sudhir Mungantiwar proposed to bring a motion in the assembly in honour of Hindutva ideologue V D Savarkar, they said. Speaker Patole is yet to take a decision on it, the officials said.

"We have to give a message that the Maharashtra Assembly respects freedom fighter Veer Savarkar. Now we have to see whether their (state government) love for him is in heart or just in words, tweeted Mungantiwar.