President Confers Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019 today

President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind will confer the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2019 at Rashtrapati Bhawan on 22nd January 2019. The awards will be given to 26 shortlisted awardees including one joint award for National Child Award (now renamed as Bal Shakti Puraskar) under the category of innovation, scholastic, sports, arts & culture, social service and bravery. A total of 783 applications were received for the Baal Shakti Puruskar this year. 2 individuals and 3 institutions will also be awarded under National Child Welfare Awards category (now renamed as Bal Kalyan Puraskar). The names of awardees were finalized by the National Selection Committee under the Chairpersonship of WCD Minister, Smt Maneka Sanjay Gandhi. 

The Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India has introduced a revamped award scheme under the name of “Pradhan Mantri National Children Awards”. These awards will be given in two main categories. Bravery Awards have also been added to these awards now. The categories are as follows: 

Bal Shakti Puraskar (erstwhile known as National Child Award) 

Bal Kalyan Puraskar(erstwhile known as National Child Welfare Award)

Bal Shakti Puraskar shall be given in the following fields: 

1. Innovation;

2. Social Service

3. Scholastic

4. Sports

5. Art & Culture

6. Bravery

The award carries a medal, a cash prize of Rs. 1, 00,000/-, book vouchers worth Rs. 10,000/-, a certificate and a citation. 

Bal Kalyan Puraskar shall be given in the following categories:- 

(a)  Individual 

(b)  Institution 

The award for an individual consists of a cash prize of Rs. 1, 00,000/- (one lakh), a medal, a citation and a certificate to each awardee. The award for institution consists of a prize of Rs. 5, 00,000/- each and a medal, a citation, and a certificate. 

The maximum number of awards would be 3(three) for the National Child Welfare Award( Individual and Institution both). 

In order to popularize the scheme amongst the general public and make it more genial, this Ministry has launched an award portal (i.e www.nca-wcd.nic.in) developed by NIC on 01.08.2018 for accepting the online applications. A Child who is an Indian Citizen and residing in India can apply for National Child Award by registering on the web portal, filling the requisite information and attaching the relevant documents. In order to draw a wide response from the public, any citizen of India can nominate any child who has achieved excellence in any of the fields. Individuals who are citizen of India and have made an outstanding contribution for the cause of children in the field of Child Development, Child Protection and Child Welfare for not less than 7 years and have a positive impact on the lives of children and Institutions who have done exceptional work for the cause of children in any field of Child Welfare for 10 years can apply for the National Child Welfare Award. 

The logo for the award has been crowdsourced through a social media-based competition. The awards are being hosted prior to 26^th January so as to ensure that children get to participate in the Republic Day Parade. 

The children were shortlisted by the ICCW, which has been giving out the bravery awards every year on January 26 since 1957. The NGO's Chairperson, Gita Siddhartha, said that she has written to the Prime Minister's office as well as the Defence Ministry but hasn't received a reply yet. Gita added that since these were their awards, the NGO would personally give it to the children in case the ministry does not. The Government has instated its own bravery awards, 'Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar' for which it has separately shortlisted 26 children.