Awards

Historical Perspective

The society traditionally promotes excellence in horticultural research and development through honour, recognition and award to distinguished horticulturists for their outstanding contributions. Initially the society started honouring scientists during different seminars/ symposia/ conferences organised by it. During the International Symposium on Citriculture in 1977, the Society honoured Dr K.M. Aiyappa, Dr K.C. Srivastava and Dr M.K. Ganapati all working at IIHR, Bengaluru and its regional stations at Gonikoppal and Chetthali (Coorg) for their significant contributions to Citriculture. Similarly, during the Second International Symposium on Mango in 1985. Dr K.C. Naik, Dr S.K. Mukherjee, Dr R.N. Singh and Dr K.L. Chadha were honoured for their outstanding contributions to mango research.

The society has long felt the need to recognise outstanding contributions to horticultural sciences through research and development by instituting regular awards. In this process, the society instituted Shri Girdhari Lal Chadha Memorial Gold Medal for outstanding contributions to Fruit Science in 1992. The funds (Rs 10,000/-) for the award were provided by his four sons, namely, Shri C.L. Chadha, Dr K.L. Chadha, President of the HSI, Dr M.L. Chadha and Shri Manohar Lal Chadha. In the same year, Dr J.C. Anand Award for Post-harvest Technology was instituted for outstanding contributions in the field with the funds (Rs 10,000/-) provided by Dr J.C. Anand, former Project Co-ordinator, PHT (ICAR). Both these awards are given once in a year. Dr R.T. Gunjate and Dr Shanta Krishnamurthy were awarded the first Shri Girdhari Lal Chadha Memorial Gold Medal and Dr J.C. Anand Award for Fruits & Post-harvest Technology, respectively on 24th May, 1993 during the Golden Jubilee Symposium on Horticultural Research-Changing Scenario at Hotel Ashok, Bengaluru.

During the EC meeting held at Lucknow in 2003, it was deliberated to institute awards for recognising contributions to Vegetable and Floriculture research w.e.f. 2004 were named as ‘HSI-Gold Medal in Vegetable Science’ and ‘HSI-Gold Medal in Floriculture’ besides the Best Research Paper Award for the articles published in the Indian Journal of Horticulture every year. Later, Dr Kirti Singh, then the Vice President of HSI offered a corpus fund of Rs. 51,000/- for award in Vegetable Science