The Centre has directed all ministries and departments to ensure that “government servants” do not accept any awards with a monetary component from private organisations, invoking a 23-year-old rule that it said had remained unheeded.

The Union ministry of personnel, public grievances and pensions said in a December 4 office memorandum that government servants may accept awards from any private organisation only after approval from the secretaries of their ministry or department.

The memorandum specified that the secretaries may approve awards only in “exceptional circumstances”, on condition that the awards “do not have any monetary component in the form of cash or facilities” and that the credentials of the private institutions are “unimpeachable”.

Sections of scientists on Sunday interpreted the directive as a follow-up on moves initiated by the Centre last year that they view as an effort to alter the country’s decades-old ecosystem for awards in the scientific and medical fields.

Some scientists are also wondering what implications, if any, the directive may have on the eligibility of researchers at government-funded institutions for the Infosys Prize, an annual award from the Infosys Science Foundation in six fields — engineering and computer science, humanities, life sciences, mathematics, physical sciences, and social sciences.

Each prize carries a gold medal, a citation and $100,000 or its equivalent in rupees.

Past Infosys Prize winners have included scientists from autonomous institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.

A physics professor at an Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) said it was unclear whether the directive would apply to faculty at the IISERs and similar academic institutions.

“We are not government-gazetted officers -- it is therefore unclear whether this will apply to us. But if it does, it is another way to nip creativity or disregard excellence,” the professor said.

“No country in the West has such strange regulations. Scientists don’t pursue science for awards or recognition. But the fact that society recognises your work drives scientists to keep doing what they are good at.”

Scientists say the autonomy of such institutions has been on the wane in recent years with many rules that apply to government servants — for instance, procurement through the government e-marketplace — having been imposed on scientists at autonomous institutions.

The Union home ministry had last year asked science-related departments to discontinue dozens of internal awards, including private endowment awards, fellowship and scholarship awards, and establish new “high stature” awards, among them a “Vigyan Ratna”.

In September this year, the Centre announced four sets of new science awards, including one set called the Vigyan Ratna, and eliminated the Rs 5000,000 cash component of the prestigious Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize, an annual award.

“Perhaps the government is concerned that private awards with cash components will lower the perceived value of government awards that have no cash prizes any more,” said Aniket Sule, an astronomer at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai.

The December 4 office memorandum cited a 1999 government order that said the government itself had various ways of recognising any government servant who had done outstanding work, and that it would not be appropriate for them to accept private awards.

The memorandum also cited a February 17, 2000, order from the department of personnel disallowing awards to government servants from private organisations.

“It has, however, been observed that these instructions are not being adhered to in their true spirit,” the memorandum said.

Scientists say the memorandum effectively introduces government control on who gets private awards. “If the government does not wish certain people to be recognised by even private institutions, this directive will facilitate such control,” Sule said.