By Vivek Shukla
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee awarded 11 IAS officers with Chief Minister's Award for Excellence in Public Service to acknowledge and appreciate their untiring services. She gave away these award in a glittering ceremony on the occasion of Independence Day.
The awards were given to additional chief secretary (ACS) home B PGopalika (1989 batch), ACS forest Vivek Kumar (1990 batch), ACS finance Manoj Pant (1991), principal secretary irrigation Prabhat Mishra (1993), principal secretary women and child welfare Sanghamitra Ghosh (1997), principal secretary health N S Nigam (1998), power and information and cultural affairs secretary Santanu Basu (2000) and MD of WBPDCL P B Salim (2001).
Apart from senior bureaucrats, three district magistrates – Sharad Dwivedi (2017) North 24-Parganas, Mukta Arya (2019) of Howrah and Bidhan Roy of Birbhum district were also felicitated.
Constitution of Award
The awards were first constituted in the year 2014 when four IAS officers were awarded. Later the award function got discontinued over rift within the bureaucratic circle on the merit of the award. Few bureaucrats were of the opinion that it is difficult to judge the work of bureaucrats as there is no level playing field for the.
“Some get good posting and their success is reflected but many officers work under adverse circumstances. Even their best of the efforts can't be a match to an ordinary effort put in by those who have relatively easier posting with conducive environment,” said a senior bureaucrat.
There are few who fear being awarded by chief minister or any political entity.
“God forbid if the ruling party changes then the opposition coming into power will have biased approach towards the awardee, who will get punishment or cold posting every time. It's like a double edged sword,” said another officer who is close to Mamata Banerjee.
Gehlot launched Chief Minister's Excellence Award
Rajasthan chief minister introduced CM Excellence Award to motivate and encourage IAS officer and to acknowledge their services towards public welfare. This first edition of this award was launched on April 21, 2023 to commemorate Civil Services Day. Now this award will be given every year on this day.
In the first edition Gehlot gave away this award to district collector Pali Namit Mehta (2012 batch), then district collector Jhalawar Bharti Dixit (2014 batch), then collector Udaipur Tara Chand Meena (2011 batch) and then collector Barmer Lok Bandhu (2015 batch) for their exceptional work and innovations at district level for public welfare.
Apart from that, Sushil Kumar Kulhari (IRS), joint secretary Planning and Dr Neetish Sharma, director programme monitoring at chief secretary office were among the first awardees.
Starting with felicitating IAS officers, later scope of this award will be increased to RAS officers, doctors, teachers and engineers working in different departments.
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 home B PGopalika (1989 batch), ACS forest Vivek Kumar (1990 batch), ACS finance Manoj Pant (1991), principal secretary irrigation Prabhat Mishra (1993), principal secretary women and child welfare Sanghamitra Ghosh (1997), principal secretary health N S Nigam (1998), power and information and cultural affairs secretary Santanu Basu (2000) and MD of WBPDCL P B Salim (2001).){kind=link}