Dilip Walse-Patil

'Dilip Walse-Patil (Marathi: दिलीप वळसे-पाटील) is an Indian politician, from Maharashtra. He is former Speaker of Maharashtra Legislative Assembly from 11 November 2009 till November 2014.^[1]

A member of the Nationalist Congress Party, Walse-Patil is known to be a close associate of party President Mr. Sharad Pawar, the former Agriculture Minister in the central cabinet. Walse-Patil earlier headed the ministry of Finance and Planning, for the Government of Maharashtra.

With his father being an active politician, leadership has been instilled in him since childhood. He learnt his early lessons in active politics as a PA to Sharad Pawar, the Maratha strongman and still is one of Pawar's highly trusted lieutenants. He took on Kisanrao Bankhele in Ambegaon in 1990 to become an MLA for the first time and is currently serving the people of Maharashtra for a sixth consecutive term.

In spite of his painstaking efforts, he has continuously been in the line of fire for the recent power crisis in Maharashtra. His efforts are slowly showing fruit since there have been significant improvements in power generation. He has been instrumental in streamlining the working of MSEB, the power company in Maharashtra. However, the ever growing demand still continues to be the major roadblock in the path of Maharashtra becoming a power surplus state.

Apart from Energy, which seems to have taken away all the limelight, Patil has made some significant contributions to education in Maharashtra. He has implemented some vital changes to make the admission procedure for medical seats, more transparent. His initiative in encouraging the setup of new engineering colleges and in their smooth approval process, has created an atmosphere conducive to education. Maharashtra knowledge corporation is his creation, which has more than 5000 MSCIT centers all over Maharashtra. He played keyrole in the establishment of Government College of Engineering as well as Polytechnic in 2009 at Avsari (K).

References