Award of Rs 20,000 to Best Writers (Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society)

What is the Award of Rs 20,000 to Best Writers?

The Award of Rs 20,000 to Best Writers is an annual literary prize of the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, administered through the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society. The Society exists to promote the art, culture and literary work of the Adi Dravidar and Scheduled Tribe communities of Tamil Nadu, and this award is its best-known instrument.

According to the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department's policy note for 2025-26, the Society gives prize money to the best writers who produce excellent works in story, essay, poetry, history and the novel, drawn from a separate corpus fund built on a deposit of Rs 50 lakh. The prizes are paid out of the interest earned on that corpus, which is why the award is stable from year to year and does not depend on a fresh budget line each time.

The number in the scheme name and the number in the current policy note are different, and it is worth being precise about that. The Tamil Nadu government scheme directory lists this scheme as an award of Rs 20,000, which was the rate at which the prize was notified. The department's 2025-26 policy note records Rs 1,00,000 for a total of 11 writers, with the cost of publication of the selected books subsidised whichever is less. Both figures come from government sources at different points in time. A writer planning to enter should treat Rs 20,000 as the historic notified rate and confirm the current year's rate directly with the Society, rather than assume either number.

How the 11 places are divided. The policy note sets out the composition explicitly:

• 9 writers from Adi Dravidar, Tribal or Christian Adi Dravidar backgrounds.
• 1 writer who is neither Adi Dravidar nor Tribal, for a work written on Adi Dravidar issues.
• 1 writer of any community, Adi Dravidar, Tribal, or neither, for a work written on tribal issues.

That structure matters. Nine places recognise writers from the communities themselves. Two places recognise writing about those communities regardless of who wrote it, which is how a Tamil writer from any background can be honoured for serious work on caste, land, labour or tribal life.

Who is eligible for the Best Writers award, and who is not eligible?

You can be considered if:

• You have written a work of story, essay, poetry, history or the novel in the period for which entries are called.
• For the nine reserved places, you belong to the Adi Dravidar, Scheduled Tribe or Christian Adi Dravidar community and hold a community certificate issued by the Tahsildar.
• For the two open places, your work is on Adi Dravidar issues or on tribal issues, whatever your own community.
• You are a resident of Tamil Nadu and the work is available for the selection committee to read.

You are not eligible, or your entry cannot be considered, if:

• The work is not original. A compilation, a translation of someone else's book, or a text substantially reproduced from another author.
• You are claiming one of the nine community-reserved places without a community certificate. A self-declaration is not accepted in its place.
• The work falls outside the five listed genres. Journalism, textbooks, research theses and technical writing are not what this prize covers.
• You have already won this same award for the same work. The award is not given twice for one book.
• You are applying as an institution or publisher. The prize goes to an individual writer, and the publication subsidy is tied to the selected book, not to a publishing house's general list.

There is no income ceiling and no age limit published for this award. It is a merit prize, not a welfare payment, and a writer's economic status is not part of the test.

How to apply for the Best Writers award

1. Watch for the Society's call for entries. The Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society announces when it is receiving works. Notices are routed through the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department and the District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Officers, and are also carried in Tamil literary magazines and the Tamil press.
2. Confirm the current rate and the eligible period with the Society or your District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Officer, because the notified figure has been revised since the scheme was first listed.
3. Prepare your entry set — copies of the published book or the manuscript in the number the notice asks for, your community certificate where you are competing for a reserved place, Aadhaar, bank passbook copy and a signed declaration that the work is your own.
4. Submit the entry to the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society through the office named in the notice. Entries can be handed in at the District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Office, which forwards them, or sent directly where the notice permits it.
5. Obtain an acknowledgement with a date and reference number. Without it you have no way to trace an entry that goes missing between the district office and Chennai.
6. Wait for the selection. A committee constituted by the Society reads the entries and recommends the eleven names. Results are communicated to the selected writers and the prize money is credited to the bank account given in the entry.

What documents are required?

How is the winner chosen?

Selection is by a committee constituted under the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society. The department does not publish a marks scheme, and it is better to say so than to invent one. What the policy note does make clear is the basis of the judgement: excellence of the work in story, essay, poetry, history or the novel, and the composition of the eleven places, which is fixed in advance so that community-reserved and open places are decided separately rather than competing against each other.

The Society's wider work gives useful context for what it values. Alongside the prize, it has translated and reprinted major works on Adi Dravidar and tribal life, including writing from the Iyothee Thass tradition, and the 2025-26 policy note records further translations in progress covering the thoughts of Iyothee Thassar, the writings of M.C. Rajah, Imayam's Sedal and a collection of short stories by Dalit writers. Work that opens up that history, or that records the present life of these communities with seriousness, is the kind of writing the Society has consistently backed.

Why entries get rejected

• No community certificate where a reserved place is claimed.
• Genre outside the scheme. The five named categories are the whole list.
• Entry received after the closing date in the Society's notice.
• Incomplete set of copies, so the committee cannot circulate the work.
• Bank details missing or in another person's name, which stalls payment even after selection.
• Work already awarded under the same scheme.

Most of these are fixable if caught early, which is the practical argument for routing your entry through the District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Officer and asking that office to check the file before it goes to Chennai.

Where to raise a grievance

• District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Officer, at your district Collectorate, is the first point of contact for entries and for anything that goes wrong with an acknowledgement or a payment.
• Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society, which administers the corpus and the selection.
• Director of Adi Dravidar Welfare, and above that the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department in the Secretariat, Chennai 600009, whose current contact details are published on tnadw.tn.gov.in.
• Tamil Nadu Public Grievance portal for a written grievance that the district office has not settled.

Entering for this award is free. No fee is payable to any officer, agent or publisher to have a book considered, and no one can promise a place among the eleven in exchange for money.

How to check your application status

There is no online tracking portal for this award, since entries are submitted offline through the Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Department. Here is how a writer can actually follow up on an entry that has already been sent in.

1. Keep the acknowledgement from submission. The date-stamped receipt or reference number given when the entry was handed in at the District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Office (or sent directly to the Society) is the only proof that the entry was received. Without it, the district office has no quick way to locate a particular book among the entries that came in that year.
2. Call or visit the District Adi Dravidar and Tribal Welfare Officer first. This office is the one that physically forwards entries to the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Arts and Literature Development Society in Chennai, so it can confirm whether a given entry was dispatched and on what date, which is usually the fastest way to find out where things stand.
3. Ask specifically whether the selection committee has met for that year's entries. Because the prize is paid from interest on a fixed corpus rather than an annual budget allocation, the committee's meeting date can shift from year to year, and there is no published fixed date by which a writer should expect to hear back.
4. If the district office cannot answer, follow up with the Society or the Director of Adi Dravidar Welfare at the Secretariat in Chennai, quoting the same acknowledgement details. Current contact information is published on tnadw.tn.gov.in.
5. Selected writers are informed directly, and the prize amount is credited to the bank account given at the time of entry. A writer who does not hear anything within a reasonable time after the announced selection period should treat that as a reason to follow up rather than assume the entry was unsuccessful, since results are not published as a public list in every year.

This status-check process is separate from filing a grievance: use the steps above to simply ask where an entry stands, and reserve the Tamil Nadu Public Grievance portal for cases where an acknowledged entry has gone unanswered for an unreasonably long time or a payment has not arrived after selection.