MoEF Invites Nominations for Dr.Salim Ali National Wildlife Fellowship Award

Ministry of Environment and Forests has invited nominations for the instituted Dr. Salim Ali National Wildlife Fellowship Award for the year 2013.

The details are available on the Ministry’s website www.envfor.nic.in.

Dr. Salim Ali National Wildlife Fellowship Award and Shri KailashSankhla National Wildlife Fellowship Award for Research/Experimental projects on avian wildlife and mammalian wildlife were instituted by MoEF in 1995 and 1996 respectively.

The awards were instituted to commemorate the memory of these wildlife conservationists so as to inspire and promote the younger generations of wildlife managers and scientists in taking up research/experimental projects aimed at conservation and development of the rich wildlife heritage of our country.

Sálim Ali was perhaps the greatest Indian ornithologist. Known as the “birdman of India”, Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and his bird books helped develop ornithology.

Kailash Sankhala was the director of Delhi Zoological Park and Chief Wildlife Warden of Rajasthan. His work was primarily on conservation of tigers and he was well known as the Tiger Man, and took great interest and was involved in the formation of Project Tiger.

These awards have been conferred in alternate years. The Dr. Salim Ali National Wildlife Fellowship Award is given in an odd numbered year and Shri Kailash Sankhla National Wildlife Fellowship Award in an even numbered year.

The fellowship amount is Rs. 20000/- per month and the contingency amount is Rs. 1,00,000/- per annum.

The fellowships are to be awarded normally for a period of two years.

In case, the Awardee is an employee, he/she is entitled to avail the Fellowship awards along with the salary benefits and other allowances.

Only Indian citizens are eligible for the awards and preference is given to officials of the Forest & Wildlife Departments of the State Governments/Union Territories to encourage the scientific temper amongst them.

Further details are available on the ministry’s website.