The National Film Award for Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation 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 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 Film on Other Social Issues. 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 1989, at the 37th National Film Awards the new category of award for Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation was introduced for the Rajat Kamal and awarded annually for films produced in the year across the country, in all Indian languages. since its inception, the award has been present only nineteen times to unique films. It has been presented for films in eight languages with the highest being six in Malayalam and Kannada, two each in Assamese Marathi, Hindi and Odia, and one each in Bodo, Manipuri, and Tamil. It was not presented on nine occasion in 1990 (38th ceremony), 1991 (39th ceremony), 1996 (44th ceremony), 2001 (49th ceremony), 2002 (50th ceremony), 2006 (54th ceremony), 2007 (55th ceremony), 2009 (57th ceremony), and 2011 (59th ceremony).
The inaugural award was conferred upon the production house M/s Purbanchal Film Co-operative Society Ltd. (Rajat Kamal and 30,000) and director Jahnu Barua (Rajat Kamal and 15,000) for their Assamese film Bonani for the story of a lone forest officer fighting the illegal timber mafia and protecting rights of uneducated tribals. Kannada film director P. Sheshadri received the award in 2005 for his film Thutturi which was produced by Jayamala Ramchandra. He again won the award in 2010 for the film Bettada Jeeva produced by Basanta Kumar Patil. Malayalam film director Dr. Biju went on to receive the award in 2013 for his film Perariyathavar produced by Ambalakkara Global Films and again in 2015 for the film Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal produced by A. K. Pillai. The most recent recipient of the award has been the Malayalam film Aavasavyuham directed by Krishand RK.
Winners The award includes 'Rajat Kamal' (Silver Lotus) and cash prize to the producers and director each. The first award in 1989 had a monetary association of 30,000 to the producers and 15,000 to the directors. In 1995 at the 43rd award ceremony the Bodo language film Rape in the Virgin Forest was honoured and the cash prices were revised to 30,000 each presented to Jwngdao Bodosa who had both produced and directed the film about the problems of deforestation and struggles of tribal people. The monetary association was again revised to 1,50,000 to both the producers and directors in 2008 at the 56th awarding ceremony where producer Akshay Parija and director Prashanta Nanda's Odia language film Jianta Bhoota (meaning "The Living Ghost") was the winner for its portrayal of lives of Dongria Kondh tribal people residing in the Niyamgiri hills range of Odisha.
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) 1989 Bonani Assamese Purbanchal Film Jahnu Barua 1990 No Award 1991 No Award 1992 Cheluvi Hindi Sadir Media Girish Karnad 1993 Devara Kadu Kannada Pattabhirami Reddy Productions Pattabhirami Reddy Tikkavarapu 1994 Nirbachana Odia NFDCDoordarshan Biplab Ray Chowdhury 1995 Rape in the Virgin Forest (Hagramayao Jinahari) Bodo Jwngdao Bodosa Jwngdao Bodosa 1996 No Award 1997 Bhoomi Geetha Kannada R. Mahadev Gowda Kesari Harvoo 1998 Malli Tamil N'CYP Santosh Sivan 1999 Jalamarmaram Malayalam Latha Kurien RajeevRadhika Suresh Gopi T. K. Rajeev Kumar 2000 Oru Cheru Punchiri Malayalam Jisha John M. T. Vasudevan Nair 2001 No Award 2002 Urumattram Tamil Aadhi Bhagavan Talkies B.Sivakumar 2003 Juye Poora Xoon Assamese Sanjib Sabhapandit Sanjib Sabhapandit 2004 Devrai Marathi Y. N. Oak Sumitra BhaveSunil Sukthankar 2005 Thutturi Kannada Jaimala Ramchandra P. Sheshadri 2006 No Award 2007 No Award 2008 Jianta Bhoota Odia Akshay Kumar Parija Prashanta Nanda 2009 No Award 2010 Bettada Jeeva Kannada Basanta Kumar Patil P. Sheshadri 2011 No Award 2012 Black Forest Malayalam Joshy Mathew Baby Mathew Somatheeram 2013 Perariyathavar Malayalam Ambalakkara Global Films Dr. Biju 2014 Ottaal Malayalam Director Cutz Film Company Jayaraj 2015 Valiya Chirakulla Pakshikal Malayalam A. K. Pillai Dr. Biju 2016 Loktak Lairembee Manipuri Haobam Paban Kumar Haobam Paban Kumar 2017 Irada Hindi Irada Entertainment Aparnaa Singh 2018 Paani Marathi Priyanka Chopra Adinath Kothare 2019 Water Burial Monpa Faruque Iftikar Shantanu Sen 2020 Taledanda Kannada Hema Malini Krupakar Arun Kumar R. Praveen Krupakar 2021 Aavasavyuham Malayalam Krishand R. K. Krishand R. K.
References
External links Official Page for Directorate of Film Festivals, India National Film Awards Archives National Film Awards at IMDb