Malda, Sept. 8: The Malda district administration has decided to exclude the Merchants’ Chamber of Commerce from the presentation of awards for excellence to puja committees this year.

Till 2009, the district administration and the chamber of commerce together picked the best puja organisers in Malda and presented awards to them. But this time, the authorities have decided to form a committee of representatives of all departments and the Border Security Force to judge the best pujas.

“The award was started about nine years ago and was called Sharad Samman. However, despite the award being organised jointly by the district administration and the chamber, the traders used to gather all accolades and that is why we have decided not to go along with them,” said additional superintendent of police of Malda Kalyan Banerjee.

He said starting from the selection of the best idols and themes to the presentation of the awards, the chamber stole the limelight and people were not aware of the role of the administration.

“This had created several controversies in the past, especially on the selection of winners. We have decided to leave out the chamber mainly because of this reason. We will bring judges and artists so that the presentation ceremony can be held with gaiety and pomp,” said Banerjee.

However, the chamber has said it is not bothered about the decision of the district administration. “For the past nine years, we have been organising Sharad Samman. I fail to see why the district administration has all of a sudden decided to leave us out of the award selection. If they want to do so, we have no objections. We will decide whether we will run a parallel award on our own,” said chamber secretary Jayanta Kundu.

He added that he had not received any complaints regarding the award selection from any quarter.