Aurangabad is officially now Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar

The Maharashtra government formally renamed Aurangabad as "Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar" and Osmanabad as "Dharashiv" at the special state cabinet meeting taking place in Aurangabad. They both fall under the Marathwada region. Two notifications to this effect were released by the state administration on Friday.

According to the announcement made by Santosh Gawde, deputy secretary of the state revenue department, the region, districts, tehsils, and villages of Aurangabad and Osmanabad have been renamed as "Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar" and "Dharashiv," respectively.

“We have now officially renamed Aurangabad as ‘Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar’ and Osmanabad as ‘Dharashiv’. We have made it foolproof and there is no technical glitch left in it,” said Chief Minister Eknath Shinde after the state cabinet meeting.

At its final cabinet meeting on June 29, 2022, the former MVA administration, which had Uddhav Thackeray as its chief minister, made this decision first. As a gesture, a proposal to rename Aurangabad Airport as "Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj Airport" was been approved by the MVA administration in March 2020.

The Eknath Shinde-led administration reaffirmed the MVA government's decision to rename Aurangabad and Osmanabad on July 16, 2022. Following a petition in the Bombay High Court challenging it, the decision was put on hold. On April 21, the high court ordered the state to restrain the use of the name of the historic city as "Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar" in official communications and records until it had decided on the petition challenging the state's plan to rename it.

“In the subsequent hearings, the petitions were dismissed, and we have already got approval from the union home ministry for the renaming. Thus, formal notifications were issued on Friday,” said a senior official from the state law and judiciary department.

Orders issued by Shyamal Kumar Bit, undersecretary at the Ministry of Home Affairs in February, stated, “Government of India has no objection to changing the name of Aurangabad to Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Osmanabad city to Dharashiv.”