Patna, Jan. 17: Chief minister Nitish Kumar has been conferred with the prestigious Swami Vivekananda National Award, 2011 under the “statesmanship” category.

Nitish, who won a landslide victory in the Assembly polls last year, is no novice when it comes to receiving awards. Last year he received the Forbes India Person of the Year and CNN-IBN Indian of the Year (Politics).

The awards committee, comprising several luminaries, in a letter to the chief minister, said: “His (Nitish’s) initiatives and focus on development activities with result-oriented approach have provided different dimensions to the regional political scenario besides uplifting the living condition of the people at large.”

Former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee is a co-recipient of the award.

Former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had constituted the prestigious national award in the name of Swami Vivekananda on the occasion of his 125th birth anniversary in 1984.

Former Chief Justice of India K.G. Balakrishnan heads the jury of the award committee.

The other members are P.C. Alexander, Graig Galbraith, Mohan Dharia, Prabhat Kumar, Raj Reddy, Madhur Jaffrey, S.K. Sharma, Amitabh Ghosh, Shekhar Choudhary, Subhas Kasyap and Vani Jairam.

Nitish Kumar, reacting to the award, said: “This award is an honour for the 11 crore people of Bihar. This reminds us of the great responsibilities and challenges which need to be tackled. We have pledged to change these challenges into opportunities so that the ultimate goal of development with justice is achieved.”