Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Group CEO of Bharti Enterprises, has been selected for the prestigious ‘Lal Bahadur Shastri National Award for Excellence in Public Administration, Academics and Management’ for the year 2009. The Award will be given by the President of India Pratibha Patil in Rashtrapati Bhavan on December 15, 2009. This was announced by Mr. Anil Shastri, former Union Minister and Convenor of the Jury. The selection was done by a nine member Jury comprising eminent persons.

The earlier recipients of this Award have been Prof. C.K. Prahalad, Dr. E. Sreedharan, Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, Dr. Naresh Trehan, Dr. C.P. Srivastava, Ms. Ela R. Bhatt, Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, Mr. N.R. Narayana Murthy, Mr. Sam Pitroda.

Mr. Shastri said that Sunil Bharti Mittal has been selected for this honour in recognition of his quality business leadership.  He has created one of the leading business groups in India with interests in telecom, financial services, retail, manufacturing, realty and agri-business. He has contributed significantly to the upliftment of rural poor and also contributed to the growth of academic excellence with Indian ethos.