The “Anundoram Borooah Award Scheme was announced by Sri Tarun Gogoi, Hon'ble Chief Minister of Assam on the floor of the Assembly in the Budget Session during March, 2005 as a unique award scheme to encourage competitive spirit among the students in the State. The education landscape has quite changed after this announcement by the Hon'ble Chief Minister. First there was disbelief which soon changed into awe and then into a unique emotional bonding of the parents, students, awardees and teachers for this scheme.

The Anundoram Borooah Award Scheme was launched by the Govt. of Assam in the year 2005 with the sole aim of enhancing healthy competition amongst the student community and to help them to enrich their perception through up-to-date knowledge and information with the help of IT education. In this age of globalization, Information Technology already has significantly altered many aspects of life and in recent years this robust field has made its place into the academic curriculum of schools and colleges up to the university level. Therefore, looking at the present scenario of the innate potentialities of the IT industry, the Government of Assam has made an effort to promote IT education through this unique scheme.

The award was instituted in the honour of Late Anundoram Borooah who was the 4th Indian (and the 1st Assamese) to join the prestigious ICS and the 1st Indian to be appointed as Deputy Commissioner. He was also a great Sanskrit scholar and authored several books including the Sanskrit-English Dictionary. Please click here for a brief snippet on his life and times, the way it appears on the certificate issued to the awardee students.

The Assam Electronics Development Corporation Ltd was entrusted to carry out the scheme on behalf of the Planning & Development Department. The 1st programme of Anundoram Borooah Award was launched centrally at the historic Judges Field on 14th September, 2005 by Sri Tarun Gogoi, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Assam. District level programmes were held in every district and were attended by the Hon'ble Ministers and MLAs. Thousands of enthusiastic students, guardians and teachers attended each of these programmes.

In the second year in 2006, the programme of computer distribution was ceremoniously launched by the Hon’ble Chief Minister at the Judges Field on 17th December, 2006. Like previous year, district and sub division level programmes were held for distribution.  Like previous year, the programmes were enthusiastically attended by thousands of students, guardians and principals. In the third year in 2007, the computer distribution programme was launched on 2nd February, 2008 by the Hon’ble Chief Minister at the Judges Field. Like last two years, similar programmes were held in district and sub division level. Responses of teachers, students, guardians in these programmes were very much encouraging. Similarly, for the fourth conjugative year in 2008, the computer distribution programme was launched on 22nd January, 2009 by the Hon’ble Chief Minister at Veterinary Field, Khanapara, Guwahati. The distribution programmes were successfully completed though out the State of Assam. As decided by the Govt. all the student securing 1st Division in the final examination (FM) conducted by the State Madrassa Board were also included under the scheme.

For the fifth year, the Anundoram Borooah awards were given away ceremonially to the successful students for 2009 by the Hon'ble Chief Minister, Assam on the 18th December, 2009 at the Veterinary Field, Khanapara, Guwahati. The award is being distributed in other districts now...

The quantum of the awards distributed for the last five years are shown as below (including Madrassa board*):- 

Year

No of 1st Div.

No. of PCs

distributed

No. of Cheques

Distributed

Total nos. of

Awardees

2005

12,756

12,649

107

12,756

2006

13,493

12,358

1,135

13,493

2007

12,692

11,094

1,614

12,708

2008

17,331

14,722

2,558

17,331

2009

17,362

14,412

 2,950

 17,362