Winners of the 66th national film awards will be declared this year after the conclusion of the general elections.
The Information and Broadcasting Ministry said in a release on Wednesday that “since the Model Code of Conduct [MCC] is in force, which facilitates level playing field to all political parties and the candidates and inter alia seeks to ensure that the power of media is not used in such a manner which affects the general conduct and level playing field during the election process, it has been decided to declare the awards after the election process is over and the MCC concludes.”
Every year the winners of the awards, organised and presented by the Directorate of Film Festivals, are announced in the month of April and the presentation ceremony is held on the designated date, May 3.
Unlike this year, during the last general elections, the 61st national film awards were announced as per schedule, on April 16, 2014 and were presented on May 3, 2014.
Meanwhile, sources in the Ministry suggest that no decision on the winners has been taken, even deliberations have not yet been done, for feature film awards. The non-feature film awards, however, are said to have been locked.
