PM Narendra Modi to Award Bureaucrats for Ensuring Economic Development of Districts, Says Jitendra Singh

New Delhi, July 17: Bureaucrats will be honoured with the Prime Minister's award for excellence in public administration for ensuring economic development of districts and improving service delivery among other criteria, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said on Friday.

The scheme for this year's awards has been revamped to recognise the performance of District Collectors towards outcome indicators, economic development, peoples participation and redressal of public grievances, he said. Also Read | COVID-19 Pandemic Has Severely Tested Resilience of All Nations, Says PM Modi at ECOSOC Session 2020: Live News Breaking and Coronavirus Updates on July 17, 2020.

Instituted in 2006, the award scheme acknowledges extraordinary and innovative work by the civil servants, central and state government departments/organisations. The scheme was restructured in 2014 for recognising the performance of District Collectors in priority programmes, innovations and aspirational districts. Also Read | Flights to Kolkata From Delhi, Mumbai & Four Other Cities to Remain Cancelled Till July 31 Amid Rise in COVID-19 Cases.

It has been restructured again in 2020 to recognise the performance of District Collectors towards economic development of the districts, according to the revamped scheme, launched by Singh on Friday.

In his address during the launch, he acknowledged the extraordinary work done by District Collectors in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. The awards under the restructured scheme shall be conferred by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Rashtriya Ekta Diwas - October 31, 2020 at the statue of unity, Kevadia, Gujarat.

Usually the awards are given during civil services day, observed on April 21 but this year the award function could not be held due to COVID-19-induced national lockdown. The nominations have been called in four major categories – District Performance Indicators Programme, Innovation General category, Aspirational Districts Programme and Namami Gange Programme — for this year's awards, a statement issued by the Personnel Ministry said.

Under the District Performance Indicators Programme, District Collectors would be evaluated on their contribution to inclusive development through credit flow to priority sectors, promoting peoples' movements -- jan bhagidari through effective implementation of priority sector schemes of Swachh Bharat Mission (rural and urban) programmes, improving service delivery and redressal of public grievances, it said.

The innovations category of the scheme has been broad-based to provide separate award categories for innovations at national, state and district levels.

The period of consideration for the awards is April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2020. In all, 15 awards would be conferred under the scheme in 2020, the statement said.

Online applications shall be invited from July 17 to August 15, 2020 through the portal www.pmawards.gov.in from districts/implementing units/organisations under the various categories in the prescribed format detailing out the achievements highlighting any path-breaking innovation undertaken by any functionary/organisation, it said.

“The department shall discuss and demonstrate the process for application submission to the concerned stakeholders in order to enable a smooth registration process and encourage a massive participation for the PM awards 2020,” the statement said.

The launch function, conducted via video conference, was attended by K Shivaji Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG), V Srinivas, Additional Secretary, DARPG and other senior officials from the Centre and the state governments.

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