More time to nominate civil servants for PM’s Awards for Excellence

Some Of The Past Award Winners (File Photo)

IN AN unusual move, the last date for the receipt of nominations for the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration for the year 2011-12 has been extended till August 16, 2012. It’s not clear whether the government extended the last date because they did not have the sufficient number of applications. According to rules, no civil servant can…
nominate himself or herself for the award that carries a medal, a scroll and a cash award of Rs 5 lakh for a team or Rs 1 lakh in individual category. And the awardee does not need to pay tax on the award money as it is exempt from income tax under Income Tax Act, 1961.
Some of the outstanding officers who had earlier received this prestigious award as a part of a team or on individual capacity included 1977 batch IAS OP Rawat (recognition of forest rights in MP), 2004 batch IAS Dr Samit Sharma (making medicines affordable), diplomat M Manimekalai (evacuating Indian nationals amid civil war in Libya), IPS officer K Tripathy (community policing) just to name a few.
The award is open to all civil servants from state or Central governments, including local bodies, panchayats and zilla parishads for achievements such as implementation of innovative schemes or projects, bringing perceptible systemic changes and building up institutions, making public delivery systems efficient and corruption free, showing innovation and adaptation to meet stakeholders’ requirements, extraordinary performance in emergent situations like floods, earthquake etc.
The nominations are first examined by an expert committee chaired by secretary, department of administrative reforms and public grievances. The names of the short-listed candidates are then sent to the empowered committee chaired by the cabinet secretary. The vigilance status is also taken into award before finalizing the list of winners.
The awards are presented by Prime Minister of India on the occasion of Civil Service Day which falls on April 21 each year.

Babu Marriage
Astik Kumar Pandey, a 2011 batch Jharkhand cadre IAS, has been transferred from Jharkhand cadre to Maharashtra cadre on the ground of marriage to Ms Patil Mokshada Anil, a 2011 batch Maharashtra cadre IPS officer.

Action and Appointments
a) The central deputation tenure of S Gopalakrishnan, a 1991 batch Tamil Nadu cadre IAS, has been extended till he completes his MA in public policy and management at Institute of Social Studies, the Hague, Netherlands.
b) Kapil Rastogi, a 1993 batch Indian Telecom Service officer, has been appointed as director in the ministry of mines.
c) Gyanendra Kumar Dwivedi, a 1993 batch Indian Telecom Service officer, has been appointed as director in the ministry of social justice and empowerment.