Veteran actor Amitabh Bachchan has been named the brand ambassador for Maharashtra's Mahavachan Utsav 2024, a state-wide mega-reading festival running from July 22 to August 30. The aim behind the initiative is to ignite passion in students for extracurricular reading beyond the curriculum. The festival not only celebrates Marathi language, literature, and culture but also promises to nurture students’ personalities, creativity, and linguistic skills. In collaboration with Read India Celebration, it offers a rich array of literary works by eminent Marathi authors via an interactive web portal.

As per the Government Resolution (GR), students across classes 3 to 12 will have to read the selected book, reflect, and submit written thoughts (150-200 words) and one-minute audio/video summaries on the Mahavachan Utsav 2024 portal. To facilitate widespread participation, students are grouped into three categories: 3rd to 5th, 6th to 8th, and 9th to 12th.

Beyond the reading mandate, schools are tasked with hosting subject-specific book fairs with private libraries, as stipulated by the GR. Oversight of these initiatives falls under education officers at the taluka level, supported by a dedicated ₹3 crore fund allocation, to ensure the campaign's success.