The Maharashtra Bhushan is a highest civilian award presented annually by the Government of Maharashtra State in

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. When the Shivsena-

BJP The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP; , ) is a political party in India and one of the two major Indian political parties alongside the Indian National Congress. BJP emerged out from Syama Prasad Mukherjee's Bharatiya Jana Sangh. Since 2014, ...

alliance came to power in 1995, it proposed to institute this award. The Maharashtra Bhushan was first awarded in 1996. It was initially conferred in every years in the fields of

Literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

Art Art is a diverse range of cultural activity centered around ''works'' utilizing creative or imaginative talents, which are expected to evoke a worthwhile experience, generally through an expression of emotional power, conceptual ideas, tec ...

Sport Sport is a physical activity or game, often Competition, competitive and organization, organized, that maintains or improves physical ability and skills. Sport may provide enjoyment to participants and entertainment to spectators. The numbe ...

, and

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

. Later the fields of

Social Work Social work is an academic discipline and practice-based profession concerned with meeting the basic needs of individuals, families, groups, communities, and society as a whole to enhance their individual and collective well-being. Social wo ...

Journalism Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree of accuracy. The word, a noun, applies to the journ ...

, and

Public Administration Public administration, or public policy and administration refers to "the management of public programs", or the "translation of politics into the reality that citizens see every day",Kettl, Donald and James Fessler. 2009. ''The Politics of the ...

and

Health Services Health care, or healthcare, is the improvement or maintenance of health via the preventive healthcare, prevention, diagnosis, therapy, treatment, wikt:amelioration, amelioration or cure of disease, illness, injury, and other disability, physic ...

were included. The award is presented for outstanding achievement in their field.

Prize and selection

At present, the award carries a cash prize of 25

lakhs A lakh (; abbreviated L; sometimes written lac) is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian 2, 2, 3 convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. For ...

, a memento and citation. The winners are selected by a committee appointed of the

Government of Maharashtra The Government of Maharashtra is the executive branch of the Indian states of india, state of Maharashtra. The government is led by the List of chief ministers of Maharashtra, chief minister (currently Devendra Fadnavis since 5 December 2024) ...

Recipients

The recipients of the Maharashtra Bhushan award are as follows

References

{{reflist, 2 Civil awards and decorations of Maharashtra