Bihar will not only celebrate its centenary on Thursday but also honour a number of artistes and writers who have made the state proud with their achievements.

Chief minister Nitish Kumar will present an award of Rs 1 lakh and a citation each to Satya Narayan, the lyricist of the state anthem, and M.R. Chisthi, who penned the state prayer song.

The selection of both was the outcome of a year-long process with the education department placing advertisements in newspapers. The anthem and the song were released at Samvad Bhavan on Wednesday.

Besides Narayan and Chisthi, a number of other achievers would be felicitated. While senior artistes would get a prize of Rs 35,000, juniors would get Rs 10,000.

Bireshwar Bhattacharya and Rajesh Ram would be presented with the Radha Mohan Purashkar for contemporary art. Shambhavi and Anita Kumari will get the Kumud Sharma Puraskar for female artistes. Sita Devi Purashkar for folk art would be presented to Shiban Paswan and Raj Kumar.

Dinkar Purashkar, named after state poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, would be presented to Avadesh Aman and Bhaneshwar Bhaskar. Theatre practitioners Gopal Prasad Sinha and Praveen Gupta would get the Bhikari Thakur Puraskar.

Anjani Kumar Singh, the principal secretary of the art culture and youth affairs department, told The Telegraph: “The motive behind felicitating and awarding them is to make the young generation aware of the various developments going on in Bihar.” The chief minister would also release a number of books.