Kohima (PTI): The Nagaland government has won the United Nations' Public Service Awards for promoting community participation by handing over the ownership and management of schools, hospitals, electricity, water supply and tourism to the villagers.

The award coming under the category of fostering participation in policy-making decisions through innovative mechanism would be given on June 23 at New York, the Chief Minister's office said in a release.

Nagaland government is the lone winner in Asia Pacific region. It is one of the 12 awards given globally by the UN in various areas of public services.

The announcement was communicated to the Chief Minister's office by Union Steel Secretary and former Nagaland Chief Secretary R S Pandey, the brain behind the programme.

Keeping in view that the Naga society possesses strong community spirit, cummunity participation in public services was introduced in 2002 instead of privatisation, resulting in improvement in delivery system in rural areas, the government said.