Cultural Affairs Minister, Government of Maharashtra, Mr. Sanjay Devtale has announced the awards on behalf of the Cultural Affairs department of Maharashtra on Tuesday. The Lifetime achievement award in the name of late Prabhakar Panshikar will be presented to the newly appointed president of Marathi Natya Sammelan Mr. Arun kakade, who has worked for almost five decades for promotion of Marathi Experimental stage plays. Mr. Kakade has already received the Sangeet Natak Academy award from the President of India this year.

The Sangeet Rangabhoomi Lifetime Award in honour of Music mastero Annasaheb Lirloskar, will be presented to Ramdas kamat, while the Vithabai Narayangaonkar Tamasha Samradni Lifetime award will go to Prabha Shivnekar. Each one of these three recipients will be honoured with Rs. 5 lakh, Shawl, Coconut and a memento.

There will be twelve more awards from the Cultural department with each one of them amounting to Rs. 1 lakh and citation, to different artistes from film, Drama, Singing and Music circle. Prominent among them are Alka Kubal Athlye(Films) Prashant Damle (Drama) , Sharad Sathe (Vocal Music) , Uttara kelkar (Classical Music) Ustad Usmad khan (Instrumental Music), Raghuveer khedkar (Tamasha) , Asha Joglekar (Classical Dance) and Chaya Khutegaonkar(Folk Art).