The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) has been selected for the special “Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan” for the 2025-26 period, the Ministry of Personnel announced on 27 August 2026. The honour, conferred by the Department of Official Language (DoL) under the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), recognises DARPG’s sustained and outstanding performance in implementing Hindi as the Official Language. Notably, DARPG also secured the first position in the category of Ministries and Departments with a personnel strength of fewer than 300, a slot that became vacant after it won the top Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar for two consecutive years.
What Is the Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan?
The “Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan” (Rajbhasha Excellence Honour) is a one-of-a-kind recognition that the Department of Official Language reserves for Ministries, Departments, or organisations that have demonstrated exceptional and sustained commitment to the Official Language policy but have become ineligible for the regular annual awards. Under the standard rules of the Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar scheme, any Ministry or Department that secures the first prize in two consecutive years is barred from receiving the award in the immediately following year.
When DARPG won the Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar (First) for both 2023-24 and 2024-25, it should have been automatically excluded from the 2025-26 cycle. However, the Department of Official Language exercised its special discretion to confer the Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan, acknowledging that DARPG’s Hindi implementation work has remained at the top level across multiple years, not just two.
This makes the Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan a rare honour, distinct from the regular ladder of Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar and Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar awards. It is essentially a “consistency beyond compliance” citation, designed to reward government bodies that have institutionalised the use of Hindi in everyday official work rather than treating it as a one-off exercise.
Why DARPG Was Selected for the Special Honour
Even though DARPG was technically ineligible for the regular Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar in 2025-26 due to the two-year rule, it once again topped the Department of Official Language’s evaluation for the “under 300 personnel” category. The performance review covers a wide range of indicators that essentially measure how deeply Hindi is woven into the day-to-day functioning of a government office.
The Department of Official Language typically evaluates parameters such as the proportion of official work, correspondence, and digital communication carried out in Hindi, the use of Hindi in publications, reports, social media, and citizen-facing material, training of staff in Hindi, the operation of the departmental Hindi Sahayog Sammelan and Hindi workshops, and the maintenance of Hindi libraries and terminology records. DARPG has consistently scored high on all these indicators.
A distinctive factor for DARPG has been its pioneering use of Hindi on the CPGRAMS (Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System) portal, the central government’s primary citizen grievance platform. Key administrative reforms documentation, Good Governance Index reports, e-Office workflows, and Citizen Charter publications issued by DARPG are also made available in Hindi for wider public outreach. The department has translated its grievance redressal guidelines and reform advisories into Hindi, helping non-English-speaking citizens access governance information in the language they understand best.
About the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances
The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances, commonly known by its acronym DARPG, is one of the three departments under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions. It functions under the overall charge of the Prime Minister and is headquartered in New Delhi. DARPG is the nodal agency of the Government of India for administrative reforms and for the redressal of public grievances, both general grievances and those specifically relating to Central Government agencies.
Origin and Evolution
The administrative reforms function in the Government of India traces its roots to March 1954, when an Organisation and Method (O&M) Division was set up in the Cabinet Secretariat on the recommendation of American public administration expert Paul H. Appleby. In March 1964, a dedicated Department of Administrative Reforms was created within the Ministry of Home Affairs, and the O&M Division was transferred to it.
In February 1973, the work was moved to the Department of Personnel under the Cabinet Secretariat. It was re-designated as the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms in 1977 and shifted to the Ministry of Home Affairs. By March 1985, it had been elevated to a full-fledged Ministry of Personnel and Training, Administrative Reforms, Public Grievances and Pensions. On 10 December 1985, the ministry was restructured into three separate departments, giving rise to the present-day DARPG alongside the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) and the Department of Pension and Pensioners’ Welfare.
Core Mandate
Under the Allocation of Business Rules, 1961, DARPG is responsible for policy formulation, coordination, and monitoring of two principal areas. First, redress of public grievances in general and, second, grievances specifically pertaining to Central Government agencies. The Public Grievance Division has handled this responsibility since December 1987, and from 1997 it also oversees Citizen Centric Initiatives such as the Citizens Charter.
DARPG also drives the documentation and dissemination of successful governance practices, manages international cooperation on public service reforms, and operates the CPGRAMS portal, which has been functional since 1 June 2007. CPGRAMS now interlinks 91 Central Ministries, Departments and Organisations, all 36 States and Union Territories, and over 74,000 subordinate users, including field-level officers. The current version of the platform, CPGRAMS 7.0, features AI-powered grievance analysis through the Intelligent Grievance Management System (IGMS), developed in collaboration with IIT Kanpur.
The Constitutional and Legal Framework Behind the Award
The Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan is not just an administrative pat on the back. It is rooted in a constitutional and statutory framework that makes the promotion of Hindi a direct responsibility of every Central Government office.
Part XVII of the Constitution
Part XVII of the Indian Constitution, covering Articles 343 to 351, lays down the official language regime of India. Article 343(1) declares Hindi in the Devanagari script as the official language of the Union, with the international form of Indian numerals for official use. Article 343(2) originally provided for English to continue alongside Hindi for 15 years from 26 January 1950, that is, until 26 January 1965.
Article 344 provides for the constitution of an Official Language Commission by the President at the end of five years and subsequently every ten years, and a 30-member Parliamentary Committee on Official Language (20 from Lok Sabha, 10 from Rajya Sabha) to review the progress of Hindi. Article 351 casts a duty on the Union to promote the spread and development of Hindi so that it serves as a medium of expression for all elements of India’s composite culture, drawing primarily on Sanskrit and secondarily on other Indian languages for vocabulary enrichment.
The Official Languages Act, 1963
To preempt the political friction that the 1965 deadline threatened to create, particularly in non-Hindi speaking states, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act, 1963 (Act No. 19 of 1963), later amended in 1967. Section 3 of the Act ensured that English would continue to be used alongside Hindi for all official purposes of the Union and for the transaction of business in Parliament, effectively making English a permanent associate official language.
Section 3(3) mandates that all communications between the Union Government and States that have not adopted Hindi as their official language shall be in English, unless the State voluntarily agrees to receive them in Hindi. Sections 5 to 7 lay down the rules for Hindi translations of Central Acts, Ordinances, and certain High Court proceedings. The Official Languages Rules, 1976, framed under Section 8 of the Act, prescribe the detailed administrative machinery for progressive use of Hindi, including the Annual Programme issued every year by the Department of Official Language.
Why This Award Matters
The Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar and Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan are part of the incentive architecture that the Department of Official Language uses to ensure that the constitutional mandate under Article 343 and the statutory obligations of the 1963 Act are not reduced to paper compliance. They recognise government bodies that have genuinely operationalised the use of Hindi in their official working, documentation, digital platforms, and citizen communication, going beyond the bare minimum.
Hindi Diwas Sammelan 2026: Where the Award Will Be Presented
The Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan will be formally presented to DARPG during the Hindi Diwas Sammelan scheduled to be held in Navi Mumbai on 14 September 2026. The Union Home Minister, Amit Shah, is expected to confer the awards at the national-level ceremony, which brings together representatives of all Central Ministries and Departments.
Hindi Diwas is observed every year on 14 September to mark the day in 1949 when the Constituent Assembly adopted Hindi in the Devanagari script as the Official Language of the Union of India. The Constituent Assembly took this historic decision on 14 September 1949, more than 15 months before the Constitution itself came into force on 26 January 1950. The very next year, the first Hindi Diwas was celebrated across Central Government offices.
The Department of Official Language, which has served as the central body for promoting the use of Hindi in official matters since its establishment in 1975, organises the annual Hindi Diwas Sammelan. The Sammelan also coincides with the conclusion of the Hindi Pakhwada (Hindi Fortnight), observed from 1 to 14 September in Central Government offices, during which special workshops, essay competitions, kavi sammelans, and awareness drives are held to popularise the use of Hindi. The Hindi Diwas ceremony is also used to honour winners of the Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar and Rajbhasha Gaurav Puraskar in various categories, including Ministries, Public Sector Banks, PSUs, and autonomous bodies.
Key Takeaways
- DARPG has been selected for the special “Rajbhasha Utkrishtta Sammaan” for the 2025-26 period by the Department of Official Language under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
- The honour recognises DARPG’s sustained excellence in implementing Hindi as the Official Language in the category of Ministries and Departments with a personnel strength of fewer than 300.
- DARPG had earlier won the Rajbhasha Kirti Puraskar (First) for two consecutive years, 2023-24 and 2024-25, making it ineligible for the regular award in 2025-26 under the two-year rule.
- The award will be presented at the Hindi Diwas Sammelan on 14 September 2026 in Navi Mumbai.
- Hindi Diwas commemorates the 14 September 1949 adoption of Hindi in the Devanagari script as the Official Language of the Union by the Constituent Assembly.
- DARPG functions under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, is headquartered in New Delhi, and operates the CPGRAMS portal, operational since 1 June 2007.
- The official language framework rests on Article 343 of the Constitution and the Official Languages Act, 1963, which made English a permanent associate official language alongside Hindi.
