The National Film Award for Best Film on Other Social Issues was one of the categories in the National Film Awards presented annually by the Directorate of Film Festivals, the organization set up by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting in India. It was one of several awards presented for feature films and is awarded with Rajat Kamal (Silver Lotus). At the 70th National Film Awards, the category was discontinued and combined with Best Film on Family Welfare, Best Film on National Integration and Best Feature Film on National Integration. The new award is named as Best Feature Film Promoting National, Social and Environmental Values.
The National Film Awards were established in 1954 to "encourage production of the films of a high aesthetic and technical standard and educational and culture value" and also planned to included awards for regional films. In 1984, at the 32nd National Film Awards various new categories were instituted for Swarna Kamal and Rajat Kamal. Categories like the Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Costume Design along with the Best Film on Other Social Issues were introduced for the Rajat Kamal. This category was introduced to be awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages. since its inception, the award has been present thirty-three times to thirty-six films. It has been presented for films in seven languages with the highest being twelve in Hindi, followed by ten in Malayalam, five in Tamil, four in Marathi, three in Bengali, two in Kannada and one in Telugu. It was not presented on two occasion in 1985 (33rd ceremony) and 2011 (59th ceremony).
The inaugural award was conferred upon production banner Sanket (Rajat Kamal and 30,000) and director Shankar Nag (Rajat Kamal and 15,000) for their Kannada film Accident for dealing with the bold topic of whistleblowing against political corruption and dealing with bad effects of alcoholism. On five occasion the award was shared by two films: in 1987 by Tamil films Ore Oru Gramathiley and Vedham Pudhithu, in 1993 by Janani (Bengali) and Naaraayam (Malayalam), in 1994 by Wheelchair (Bengali) and Parinayam (Malayalam), in 2000 by Munnudi (Kannada) and Vetri Kodi Kattu (Tamil), and in 2003 by Hindi films Koi... Mil Gaya and Gangaajal.
Winners The award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize to the producers and director each. The first award in 1984 had a monetary association of 30,000 to the producers and 15,000 to the directors. In 1995 at the 43rd award ceremony the Marathi film Doghi was honoured and the cash prices were revised to 30,000 each presented to the director duo Sumitra Bhave–Sunil Sukthankar and co-producers National Film Development Corporation of India (NFDC) and Doordarshan. The monetary association was again revised to 1,50,000 to both the producers and directors in 2006 at the 54th ceremony where producer Policherla Venkata Subbiah and director Satish Kasetty's Telugu film Hope was the winner.
† Indicates a joint award for that year
Following are the award winners over the years:
List of films, showing the year (award ceremony), language(s), producer(s) and director(s) Year Film(s) Language(s) Producer(s) Director(s) 1984 Accident Kannada Sanket Shankar Nag 1985 No Award 1986 Doore Doore Oru Koodu Koottam Malayalam M. Mani Sibi Malayil 1987 Ore Oru Gramathiley Tamil S. Rangarajan Jyothipandian Vedham Pudhithu Tamil Janani Arts Creations Bharathiraja 1988 Main Zinda Hoon Hindi NFDCDoordarshan Sudhir Mishra 1989 Unnikuttanu Joli Kitty Malayalam V. R. Gopinath V. R. Gopinath 1990 Oru Veedu Iru Vasal Tamil Kavithalayaa Productions K. Balachander 1991 Yamanam Malayalam Ajayan Varicolil Bharath Gopi 1992 Neenga Nalla Irukkanum Tamil GV Films Visu 1993 Janani Bengali Sanat Dasgupta Sanat Dasgupta Naaraayam Malayalam Raju Pilakat Sasi Shankar 1994 Parinayam Malayalam G. P. Vijayakumar Hariharan Wheelchair Bengali NFDC Tapan Sinha 1995 Doghi Marathi NFDCDoordarshan Sumitra BhaveSunil Sukthankar 1996 Tamanna Hindi Pooja Bhatt Mahesh Bhatt 1997 Dhanna Hindi Films Division Deepak Roy 1998 Chinthavishtayaya Shyamala Malayalam C. Karunakaran Sreenivasan 1999 Kairee Hindi Government of India Amol Palekar 2000 Vetri Kodi Kattu Tamil D. Pandian Cheran Munnudi Kannada Navachitra P. Sheshadri 2001 Chandni Bar Hindi Lata Mohan Iyer Madhur Bhandarkar 2002 Swaraaj Hindi George Mathew Anwar Jamal 2003 Koi... Mil Gaya Hindi Rakesh Roshan Rakesh Roshan Gangaajal Hindi Prakash Jha Prakash Jha 2004 Perumazhakkalam Malayalam Salim Padiyath Kamal 2005 Iqbal Hindi Subhash Ghai Nagesh Kukunoor 2006 Hope Telugu Policherla Venkata Subbiah Satish Kasetty 2007 Antardwand Hindi Sushil Rajpal Sushil Rajpal 2008 Jogwa Marathi Shripal Morakhia Rajeev Patil 2009 Well Done Abba Hindi Reliance Big Pictures Shyam Benegal 2010 Champions Marathi Aishwarya Narkar Ramesh More 2011 No Award 2012 Spirit Malayalam M. J. Antony Renjith 2013Tuhya Dharma Koncha Marathi Indian Magic Eye Motion Pictures Pvt Ltd. Satish Manwar 2014Chotoder Chobi Bengali Shree Venkatesh Films Kaushik Ganguly 2015Nirnayakam Malayalam Jairaj Films V. K. Prakash 2016Pink Hindi Rashmi Sharma Telefilms Limited Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury 2017Aalorukkam Malayalam Jolly Lonappan V. C. Abhilash Ancy K Sunny (13 April 2018). "'Rooted' Malayalam cinema holds head high at the National Film Awards". The Week. Retrieved 16 April 2018. 2018Pad ManHindi Twinkle KhannaHope Productions Pvt. Ltd R. Balki 2019 Anandi Gopal Marathi Essel Vision Productions Sameer Vidhwans2020 Funral Marathi Before After Entertainment Vivek Dubey2021 Anunaad – The Resonance Assamese Assam State Film Corporation Reema Borah
References
External links Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India National Film Awards Archives National Film Awards at IMDb