Under the national awareness campaign on energy conservation launched by the Ministry of Power, Government of India, NHPC was allotted the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Sikkim, Manipur and Madhya Pradesh to organise school and state level painting competition on energy conservation for the year 2013.
NHPC successfully organised the school and state level painting competitions in the above states. This year, the competition witnessed a record participation of 45 lakh students from 98,000 schools across the country against 30.90 lakh in 2012 registering an increase of 46 per cent over the previous year.
Pranab Mukherjee, President of India, presented the first prize of `1 lakh and a certificate to Master Sonam P Bhutia from Sikkim and third prize of `25,000 to Master Oinam Suraj Singh from Manipur for their outstanding paintings in the presence of Jyotiraditya M Scindia, Union Minister of State for Power (independent charge), PK Sinha, Secretary (Power), Govt of India, Neerja Mathur, chairperson, CEA and Dr Ajay Mathur, DG, BEE during the National Energy Conservation Day Awards Ceremony held in Vigyan Bhavan on December 16.
In the state of J&K, more than 1.5 lakh students participated in the competition for which Ekramul Haque, Chief (HR), NHPC limited, Regional Office, Jammu who was the nodal officer for J&K state for organising the painting competition, received the Best State Nodal Officer award under the category Participation of States/UT from the President.