Team Herald
PORVORIM: The Gomantak Marathi Academy (GMA) has demanded the government restart the grant for the academy which has been discontinued a few years ago.
GMA’s general body meeting held at the academy’s hall in Porvorim and presided over by its president Pradip Ghadi Amonkar and passed several resolutions.
The Academy demanded that the Goa Government should restart the annual grant similarly to the government giving grants to Konkani institutions.
The general body also opposed the government’s decision to merge Marathi primary schools, stating that the first chief minister of Goa Bhau Saheb Bandodkar started the schools in order to preserve the Marathi language and culture.
One of the members Vitthal Gawas suggested that the famous Marathi Sangeet Natya competition which has not been organised in years due to lack of funds should be reinstituted. The Academy also decided to help the upcoming Marathi writers by cooperating with publishing their work.
President Pradip Ghadi Amonkar congratulated and thanked the executive committee and all the members of the academy for completing of painting work of the 'Marathi Bhavan' and appealed to them to cooperate similarly in future plans.
The general body also appointed 15 new members to the vacant posts during the meeting which include Shivanand Talkar, Sudesh Kochrekar, Subhash Mahale, Umesh Parwar, Narayan Dhargalkar, Nilesh Bugde, Mahadev Gawandi, Vitthal Gawas, Rajesh Kalangutkar, Vishwas Naik, Gurudas Sawal, Dayanand Ghatwal, Parag Veluskar, Jeevan Kerkar and Bhau Naik.
The president has also made an appeal to those wishing to organise programmes at the Academy's facilities in Porvorim, to contact GMA.