Maharashtra govt to make Marathi subject compulsory in all schools

The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) coalition government in Maharashtra is set to make the Marathi language compulsory in all schools from class1 to class 10 in the state, cabinet minister Subhash Desai said on Tuesday.

The Marathi language minister said that a bill regarding the same will be tabled in the next assembly session.

"In the coming assembly session, the MVA government will make a law to enforce the Marathi language compulsory in Maharashtra schools from class 1st to 10th of all mediums," ANI quoted Desai as saying.

He reasoned that the Marathi language is not being taught in many English medium schools, further stating that it is not even kept as an optional language.

"In such schools, we will make Marathi subject compulsory to be taught to the students and we will also enact a law by the next assembly session. The process of drafting a bill is underway," Sena leader said.

He also said that the Marathi language will be made compulsory in the Maharashtra secretariat. He added that all the documentation files in the secretariat have to be in Marathi. Documentation in any other language apart from Marathi will not be considered.

Moreover, in an attempt to stop the use of English being widely used as the language in the governing bodies outside Maharashtra secretariat, a report has been sought regarding it.

Last month, the NCP-Congress-Shiv Sena coalition formed government in Maharashtra and six ministers - two each from the three alliance partners - took oath along with chief minister Thackeray. 

On November 23, Ajit Pawar had allied with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and took oath as the Deputy Chief Minister under then BJP Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. However, the two-man government could last just 80 hours as Pawar resigned. 

BJP and Shiv Sena fought the elections together and had a comfortable majority to form the government but the two parties didn't reach any consensus on the '50-50 formula' that led to the break-up of ties.