Vasan gives away P V Sukhatme national award for 2005-06

New Delhi, June 29 (UNI) To commemorate the memory of Prof P C Mahalanobis, one of the architects of Indian planning and a legendary statistician, two senior statisticians Manindra Nath Das and Professor Nikhilesh Bhattacharya were today honoured with national awards.

At a function organised on the occasion of the 113th birth anniversary of Prof Mahalanobis here, Minister of State for Statistics and Programme Implementation G K Vasan gave away the Prof P V Sukhatme National Award in Statistics for 2005-06 jointly to the two statisticians.

The Minister, in his address, stressed on the need for development of a strong statistical system in the states and at the Centre to ensure availability of quality data for planning purposes.

He said a data warehouse of official statistics was being created by the Ministry which would enable all data users and the public to have easy access to published data.

Dr Ramesh Chandra Panda, Seretary and Dr S K Nath, Director General of the Central Statistical Organisation were also present on the occasion.

The event is organised in memory of Prof Mahalanobis who laid the groundwork of Indian planning. He established the National Sample Survey in 1950 and helped in setting up of the Central Statistical Organisation, an apex body for coordination of statistical activities in India.

The award, which carries a shawl, silver plaque and a cash prize of Rs one lakh, is given every alternate year.

Dr Das, former director of the Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute, and Prof Bhattacharya, former director of the Indian Statistical Institute, were honoured for their outstanding contribution in the field of statistics.

Prizes were also distributed to three post graduate students who were winners of an essay competition conducted by the Ministry throughout the country.

Ms Poonam Chandna of Madras University bagged the first prize of Rs 15,000 while Ms Nisha Malik of Chaudhury Charan Singh Agricultural University of Haryana and Ms Jyoti Bodani of Acharya Nagarjuna University of Andhra Pradesh shared the second prize of Rs 12,000 each.

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