Mumbai: The Shinde-Fadnavis government recently re-constituted close to a dozen state-level award committees for arts, film, culture, singing, and theatre among others. The state’s Cultural Affairs department, which issued the orders recently, appointed The Kashmir Files director Vivek Agnihotri as an expert (non-government) member on the Raj Kapoor Lifetime and Special Contribution award committee along with directors Subhash Ghai, Madhur Bhandarkar, Mohan Joshi and Ved Rahi. Similarly, actor Sumeet Raghavan was appointed as an expert member of films on the state cultural award committee.

The new committees are all headed by Cultural Affairs Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar of the BJP. “Close to a dozen such state-level award committees related to arts and culture, films have been reconstituted recently. The state’s Cultural Affairs department has several such committees that decide on giving state-level awards. There are members appointed from within the government and there are non-governmental expert members who are picked from the field,” said a senior government official.