The President of India, Droupadi Murmu will be conferring the prestigious National Geoscience Awards-2022 at the Rashtrapati Bhavan Cultural Centre, New Delhi on 24th July 2023 in the august presence of Minister of Coal, Mines & Parliamentary Affairs Pralhad Joshi and the Minister of State for Mines, Coal & Railways Raosaheb Patil Danve. The Ministry of Mines confers National Geoscience Awards every year in three categories:
- National Geoscience Award for Life Time Achievement,
- National Young Geoscientist Award
- National Geoscience Award in various fields of geosciences.
Instituted in 1966, the National Geoscience Awards (NGA) is a symbol of recognition and appreciation for exceptional individuals and organizations that have demonstrated excellence, dedication and innovation in the realm of Geosciences.
The awards are presented in the field of Mineral Discovery and Exploration, Basic Geosciences, Applied Geosciences and Mining, Mineral Beneficiation and Sustainable Mineral Development.
This year for NGA 2022, 168 nominations were received under different award categories and examined through a three-stage screening process. Nominees for 10 National Geoscience Awards under different categories, which include one National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement, eight National Geoscience Awards under different fields and one National Young Geoscientist Awards have been selected. These 10 NGA awards will be presented to 22 Geoscientists by the President of India.
The National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement will be conferred upon Dr. Om Narain Bhargava, well known for his pioneering work in the Himalayas spanning over the last four decades. The National Young Geoscientist Award will be presented to Dr. Amiya Kumar Samal, Assistant Professor of Banaras Hindu University who has made significant contribution in understanding the variation of Sub-Continental Lithospheric Mantle (SCLM) below different Archean cratons of the Indian shield.
The National Geoscience Awards will be conferred in the august presence of distinguished geoscientists, scholars, policymakers and industry leaders.
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About National Geoscience Awards:
The National Geoscience Award is one of the oldest and most prestigious national awards in the field of geosciences, instituted by the Ministry of Mines, Govt. of India in the year 1966. Before the year 2009, these awards were called as National Mineral Awards. The objective of this National Level Award is to honour individuals and teams for extraordinary achievements and outstanding contributions in various fields of geosciences.
In the year 2022, as per the guidelines/ suggestions issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, the National Geoscience Awards have been rationalized and the e total number of awards has been reduced from 21 nos. to 12 nos. The National Geoscience Award was on-boarded on the National Awards Portal i.e. www.awards.gov.in and nominations for the NGA -2022 were invited through this award portal in online mode for the following three award categories-
(i) National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement (SINGLE AWARD),
(ii) National Geoscience Award (TEN AWARDS), and
(iii) National Young Geoscientist Award (SINGLE AWARD).
Selection Procedure for Award
The selection process of the awardees is very well defined and has three levels of committees to finally select an awardee. The Secretary, Mines & Chairman, Award Making Authority (AMA) constitute 4 Sectional Scrutiny committees (SSCs) as the first-level committees and a Screening Committee of Experts (SCE) as the second-level committee for discipline-wise evaluation and scrutiny. The recommendations of SSCs are put up to SCE. The nominations for the National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement and National Young Geoscientist Award are not evaluated by SSC and are directly put up to SCE. The recommendations are finally evaluated and considered by the apex authority i.e. Award Making Authority (AMA).
Awardees for National Geoscience Awards-2022
For the National Geoscience Awards- 2022, a total of 173 nominations were received. The number of valid nominations under the three award categories is 168. Out of the total 12 Awards, the AMA has finally selected 10 awards which include 4 individual awards, 3 team awards & 3 joint award. The 04 individual award also includes the one award for National Geoscience Award for Lifetime Achievement and another award for National Young Geoscientist Award.