Just a couple of days after over 50 recipients failed to turn up at the National Awards ceremony, the Information & Broadcast Ministry has decided to send these winners their awards by post.
Speaking to Hindustan Times, an official said, “Even in the past when awardees failed to turn up for whatever reason, the awards were sent home”. The decision to mail the medals and citations was reportedly made on Friday, a day after the award ceremony.
The controversy over the 65th National Film Award broke out after the winners were informed that President Ramnath Kovind would confer only 11 awards out of a total 107 categories. The remaining awards would be given away by Information and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani and MoS I&B Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore.
Hours before the ceremony, over 70 awardees wrote a letter to Chaitanya Prasad, Additional Director General, Directorate of Film Festival, the President’s office and the I&B Ministry, expressing their disappointment over the president’s inability to present them with the award, as traditionally followed.
Even the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s statement to the I&B Ministry, that the president attends all award functions for a maximum of one hour, failed to pacify the award recipients.
While a few recipients who had signed the letter eventually attended the ceremony, most chose to stay away from the event.
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