Ahead of R-Day, kids at centre of bravery awards storm, left in lurch

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 19

Ahead of the Republic Day event this year, 21 children from across the country are finding themselves at the centre of a storm over the status of the coveted National Bravery Awards.

An ugly situation has arisen in the capital where these children have parked themselves in the hope of attending the R-Day Parade as promised by the Indian Council for Child Welfare (ICCW), the NGO associated with the National Bravery Awards since 1957.

But the reality is that these kids (among them children from Jammu and Himachal) won’t get to be part of the R-Day event this time. The reason — ICCW stands booked for embezzlement of government funds after the Delhi High Court recently questioned its financial integrity on a complaint filed by one of its employees. The FIR has been registered by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, which was funding ICCW for the National Creche Scheme as well as the National Bravery Awards.

Following evidence of financial fraud, the ministry dissociated from the NGO, informing it that they won’t be supporting the ICCW version of the Bravery Awards.

Meanwhile, the ministry reinvented the national children’s awards for this year and included bravery as one of the categories under the awards now called Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, 2019. The National Selection Committee met last week under the chairpersonship of WCD Minister Maneka Gandhi and selected 26 children under various heads, including bravery. These children will be part of the official R-Day Parade contingent this year and will be presented the Awards by President Ram Nath Kovind.

In a letter to ICCW, the Ministry asked the NGO leaders not to select children for any bravery awards following the financial fraud. It also told the ICCW to ask potential bravery award candidates to apply online with the National Children’s Awards portal launched in August 2018.

“It was much later that we learnt of ICCW running a parallel award selection process despite our repeated intimations to them not to do so. We sent letters to ICCW urging them not to give false hopes to children about attendance of the Republic Day Parade. We told ICCW leaders they should not use false pretences to mislead children or their wards as the Government had dissociated itself from the NGO’s events and had undertaken its own selection for national children’s awards. We now learn ICCW has got 21 children to the capital promising them bravery awards. This is quite unfortunate,” WCD Ministry Joint Secretary Aastha Khatwani told The Tribune today.

This after ICCW president Gita Sidharth said she had not got any intimation from the ministry about whether the 21 children in question will get to attend the R-Day Parade.

The ministry, however, cited letters to ICCW making its dissociation from the NGO clear well in time.

The ICCW has been handling the National Bravery Awards since 1957 and 963 children have so far been presented with the awards.

The Delhi HC recently indicted the NGO for financial irregularities and appointed a team of administrators consisting of WCD Ministry officials to oversee its financial functioning pending further inquiry.