Republic Day 2026: Padma Awards honour achievers from these 10 districts for the first time

THE government on Sunday announced Padma awards recognising a wide spectrum of unsung heroes from across the length and breadth of India.

As many as 131 Padma awardees from over 39,000 nominations were chosen of the coveted honours through exhaustive, rigorous and scientific process of multiple rounds of scrutiny, and extensive consultations, officials said.

Officials told news agency PTI that the winners hail from every part of the country with 10 districts of awardees featuring for the first time since Independence.

The Padma Awards

The Padma Awards are one of the highest civilian honours of India announced annually on the eve of Republic Day.

The Awards are given in three categories: Padma Vibhushan (for exceptional and distinguished service), Padma Bhushan (distinguished service of higher order) and Padma Shri (distinguished service). The award seeks to recognize achievements in all fields of activities or disciplines where an element of public service is involved.

The Padma Awards are conferred on the recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee, which is constituted by the Prime Minister every year. The nomination process is open to the public. Even self-nomination can be made.

The 10 first-time districts

The awards for 2026 were chosen in such a way that 84 districts were represented across 30 states and UTs – including 10 districts recognised with a Padma award for the first time since Independence which include Mandya (Karnataka), Betul (Madhya Pradesh), Parbhani (Maharashtra), Bageshwar (Uttarakhand), Ranga Reddy (Telangana), Dakshin Dinajpur (West Bengal), Nuapada (Odisha), Dantewada (Chhattisgarh), Eluru (Andhra Pradesh), and Deeg (Rajasthan).

"Padma awards go beyond just the big cities, into the heartland of India - to Alappuzha, Bhojpur, Cachar, Darjeeling, Goalpara, Imphal, Junagadh, Krishna, Mokokchung, Nuapada, Purba Bardhaman, Sri Ganganagar, and so on," an official in the know of development told the news agency.

Communist stalwart VS Achuthanandan (Padma Vibhushan) and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) founder Shibu Soren (Padma Bhushan) were also included in the prestigious civilian honours.

"Continuing with the principle of celebrating ordinary Indians making extraordinary contributions, this year’s Padma awards recognise a wide spectrum of unsung heroes from the length and breadth of India," the official, who did not wish to be named, said.

The awards also recognised 19 inspirational women, ranging from Mangala Kapoor, an acid attack victim who went on to become a music scholar teaching at Banaras Hindu University to Armida Fernandez, a neonatologist who served for nearly half a century in government hospitals, setting up Asia’s first human milk bank.

foremost homegrown defence manufacturers, Ashok Khade, who fought poverty as a son of a Dalit cobbler and went on to establish a cutting-edge offshore fabrication company contributing to strategic national infrastructure, and P L Gautam, who rose from a modest agrarian family in Bilaspur to becoming one of India's foremost Plant Geneticists.