Names of 26 children selected for Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019

New Delhi: The National Selection Committee under the Chairpersonship of Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has finalized the names of awardees for Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019, a release from the Ministry said on Wednesday. 

The WCD ministry has shortlisted 26 awardees, including one joint award for National Child Award (now renamed as Bal Shakti Puraskar) under the category of innovation, scholastic, sports, arts and culture, social service and bravery. 

A total of 783 applications were received for the Baal Shakti Puruskar this year. The National Selection Committee also finalized the names of 2 individuals and 3 institutions under National Child Welfare Awards category (now renamed as BalKalyanPuraskar)

The Government has been conferring the National Award on Children for their exceptional achievement in the fields of innovation, scholastic, sports, arts, culture, social service, music or any other field deserving recognition. Traditionally, these awards have been given away by the President. 

Under this scheme, awards will be given in two categories ie Bal Shakti Puruskar to individuals and Bal Kalyan Puraskar for institutions/individuals working for children.The Ministry had launched a portal 'National Children Award' for receiving online applications from across country throughout the year. The individuals could recommend meritorious children or individuals/institutions working for children or recommend their own case.

In past, the Bravery awards were organised by an NGO named Indian Council for child welfare. However, Government of India supported and encouraged the winners of these awards also. Recently, the financial integrity of ICCW was questioned by Delhi High Court during the hearings of a writ petition.

In view of this, the Government dissociated itself from ICCW and revamped the scheme of National Awards for children in 2018 to include Bravery as an additional component in the Pradhan Mantri National Children Awards.(UNI)