New delhi, December 03: The Secretariat of the President should ensure fair selections of the Padma awardees for the year 2010, by directing the Union Home ministry to take a clue from the Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF).
At the PCRF, an impartial jury of distinguished personalities had worked sincerely, with complete transparency, to pick 19 awardees in the citizens’ category out of a list of about 1200 nominees. Even the ground-work for short-listing of the nominees was done in a very systematic process. So, the process became more transparent and easier as compared to the Padma awards, which ironically has to sift through only a 100 nominees.
The selection of Padma awardees has always been mired in controversy and was even stopped for several years on directions of the Apex court. Even the then President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam had to send notes to then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee about irregularities highlighted in media. The guidelines framed by KR Naraynan committee are openly flouted.
The Central Information Commission, in its recent verdict has also desired that the selection-process in this case, should be made public after the announcement of the awards. Till now, even minutes of the meetings of the selection committee are not maintained and the formality of last-minute telephonic confirmation is undertaken, much later than the last date for receiving recommendations.
–Agencies