Under the Rs 470 crore scheme - The National Mission on Cultural Mapping of India programme - the ministry will introduce a rating system for artistes and writers and hold competitions across the country in a minimum of 100 genres.
The national level winner - who would have competed with his peers at bloc, district, state and national level - from each genre will be given an award of Rs 10 lakh, out of which Rs 2 lakh will have to be mandatorily given to the artiste's guru.
"It has also been made mandatory for such artistes to give Rs 2 lakh to his guru, so that the guru doesn't feel that he hasn't got his gurudakshina," said culture secretary, N K Sinha.
Under the scheme, from each genre, the winner at the end will get Rs 10 lakh, the second will get Rs 5 lakh and third Rs 3 lakh.
Five other artists from thereon will be paid Rs 40,000 each. Thus for every discipline, the ministry has earmarked Rs 20 lakh as the prize money with a Rs 20 crore kitty for 100 recognised forms of art.
Explaining the logic behind recognising the guru is also to ensure that no poor, yet talented artist is denied training because of lack of funds.
The programme will also encourage peer to peer relations whereby artists from similar genres can band together, train each other as well as learn from each other, Sharma said.
"The idea is to develop talent in art and preserve those arts that are dying," said Culture minister Mahesh Sharma.
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