New Delhi : Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh, launched the restructured Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2020 scheme and web portal here on July 17, 2020, which for the very first time seeks to recognize the efforts of District level officials in the Namami Gange Programme.
Addressing the Central Ministries and State/ UT Governments on the occasion, Dr Singh said that the Scheme has been revamped in tune with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s governance model of citizen participation. He said that the Mantra of “Maximum Governance, Minimum Government” is incomplete without citizen participation and citizen centricity and added that transparency and accountability are its twin hallmark.
At the meeting of the National Ganga Council held on December 14, 2019, at Kanpur under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister, it was decided to create a “Good Performance for Ganga Rejuvenation” award for the Ganga districts under the Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence for Public Administration Scheme.
During the meeting, the Prime Minister gave the utmost priority to the functioning of the District Ganga Committees (DGCs) and closely reviewed the performance of the DGCs. He emphatically stated that there is a compelling need to have aligned thinking from the national to the district level and eventually to the field level and for ensuring this, the District Magistrate has to play a very important role.
The District Ganga Committee (DGC) is the most unique feature of the notification of authorities under the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, by the Government of India dated October 7, 2016, which creates a mechanism at the District Level for addressing the problem of pollution abatement of the River Ganga.
The Government of India instituted “The Prime Minister’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration” in the year 2006 to acknowledge, recognise and reward the extraordinary and innovative work done by Districts/ Organisations of the Central and State Governments.
The Scheme was restructured in 2014 for recognising the performance of District Collectors in Priority Programmes, Innovations and Aspirational Districts and was further restructured in 2020 to recognise the performance of District Collectors towards economic development of the District. For the year 2020, the scope of the awards has been expanded to identify areas of overall outcome-oriented performance in the districts across sectors, according to a PIB release.
This year, for the very first time, the PM’s Awards for Excellence in Public Administration seeks to recognise the efforts of District level officials involved in the Namami Gange Programme. Under this award category, one award shall be given to a district out of the 57 notified District Ganga Committees under the Namami Gange Programme.
Under the scheme, 57 District Ganga Committees on the Ganga main stem and tributaries have been included as a separate category for PM’s awards for excellence in Public Administration by the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG). The period of consideration for the award is from April 1, 2018, to March 31, 2020. The registration on the PM’s Awards web portal, www.pmawards.gov.in, has commenced from July 15, 2020, and submission of application will be from August 1, 2020, to August 15, 2020, after registration. The award has been scheduled to be distributed on the occasion of Rashtriya Ekta Diwas on October 31, 2020.
Speaking on the occasion of launch of this scheme, Rajiv Ranjan Mishra, Director General, National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), briefly explained about Namami Gange Programme and requested all District Magistrates and Chairperson, District Ganga Committee (57 districts – 52 on Main Stem and 5 on Tributaries) to make maximum use of this opportunity and to prepare details of District initiatives for the Prime Minister’s Awards Scheme.