Jammu And Kashmir's "Mission Youth" Wins PM Awards For Excellence

Mission Youth, which aims to transform the lives of youngsters in Jammu and Kashmir, and a cadaver transplant programme in Gujarat were among the path-breaking initiatives honoured with Prime Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Administration here on Friday.

Besides, the national COVID-19 vaccination programme and PM Gati Shakti national master plan to facilitate the mapping of social and economic infrastructure planning in the country were also chosen for the award.

"Operation Parivartan" which is aimed at transforming the lives of people engaged in the illegal liquor trade in Maharashtra's Solapur district and the 'Sanvardhan' initiative in Uttar Pradesh's Rampur district to fulfil the nutritional requirement of children were also chosen for the honour under "Innovation (District) category".

Fifteen awards were given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday at Vigyan Bhawan on the occasion of 16th Civil Services Day, which is celebrated every year on April 21 as an occasion for bureaucrats to rededicate themselves to the cause of citizens and renew their commitments to public service and excellence in work.

As many as 748 districts participated and 2,520 nominations were received for the awards.

The Prime Minister's Awards for Excellence in Public Administration 2022 for "Innovations" were given in three categories -- Centre, State and District.

Besides this, awards were also given for exemplary work under the Centre's four priority programmes -- promoting Swachh Jal through Har Ghar Jal Yojana; promoting Swasth Bharat through Health and Wellness Centres; promoting quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment through Samagra Shiksha and Holistic Development through Aspirational District Programme.

The National COVID-19 vaccination programme by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and PM GatiShakti National Master Plan by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade were chosen for the awards for Innovation (Centre) category.

The citation for PM GatiShakti National Master Plan stated that more than 800 data layers of states and Union Territories and over 500 layers of central ministries were uploaded on NMP using geospatial data resulting in easy, accurate, and cost-efficient project planning.

"Detailed project reports are getting ready in two to three months which used to take six to eight months through simultaneous visualisation of all relevant details available on the platform," it said.

Mission Youth of Jammu and Kashmir and State Organ and Tissue Transplant Organisation (SOTTO), Gujarat won the award under the "Innovation (State) category".

Gujarat developed a cadaver transplant programme in 2005 and further strengthened it in 2019 with the establishment of SOTTO, to save lives lost due to lack of organ donations.

Highlighting its impact, the citation said the number of cadaver kidney transplants in women and children increased more than two-fold. "Expensive treatments are made affordable and free of cost to the needy through the convergence of various schemes and funding mechanisms," it said.

Solapur's "Operation Parivartan" succeeded in stopping the production of illicit liquor by 75 to 80 per cent. It proved to be a proactive approach to prevent mass poisoning/hooch deaths.

Uttar Pradesh's Rampur administration's 'Sanvardhan initiative, which won the award under the Innovation(district) category, aims to increase the income levels of farmers/farmers producer organisations by following the motto 'vocal for local' The New Age Learning Centre in Changlang, Arunachal Pradesh has also won the award under the same category. Under this initiative, space is designed with special emphasis on end-to-end learning solutions at a single delivery point by integrating library, motivation centre, personality development space, skill training centre and fun learning unit to make the learning more comprehensive as well as interesting.

Madhya Pradesh's Burhanpur and Tamil Nadu's Kancheepuram got the award for being the best-performing districts under the Har Ghar Jal Yojana, which envisages that every household and public institution will have drinking water supply in adequate quantity with prescribed quality on a regular and long-term basis by 2024.

Uttar Pradesh's Chitrakoot and Gujarat's Mahesana were given the award for their exemplary work in promoting quality education with an equitable and inclusive classroom environment through 'Samagra Shiksha'.

Maharashtra's Latur and Andhra Pradesh's Anakapalli have been adjudged the best-performing districts in promoting 'Swasth Bharat' through health and wellness centres.

Baramulla in Jammu and Kashmir and Gumla in Jharkhand were chosen as best performing districts under the Aspirational Districts Programme. The awards under this category seek to recognise the achievements of the best-performing districts in the category of 112 most under-developed districts across the country.