KARACHI, Feb 28 At least eight notable poets and writers of the country received literary awards at a ceremony on Saturday.

The four regional language cash awards, Rs300,000 each, went to Gul Hasan Kalmati for his Karachi Sindh Ji Mario (Sindhi), Allah Bux Buzdar for Hamay Ishq Lakhyam (Balochi), Nazeer Kahut for Darya Burd (Punjabi) and Ajmal Khattak for Dazownd Chaghay (Pashto). Hameed Khattak received the award on Ajmal Khattak's behalf as the author was unable to travel to Karachi due to ill health.

The Urdu language awards, Rs500,000 each, went to Atta-ul-Haq Qasmi for Waseeyat Namay (humour), Dr Jamil Jalibi for Tarikh-i-Adab-i-Urdu (research and criticism), Mohammad Ilyas for Kuhr (prose) and the late Ahmed Nadeem Qasimi for his book Arz-o-Sama (poetry), compiled by his daughter after his death. His daughter Dr Naheed Qasimi received the award.

The awards were given by the chief guest on the occasion, Deputy Speaker of the Sindh Assembly Shehla Raza, who was filling in for Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Sherry Rehman, who couldn't attend the ceremony due to more pressing engagements in Islamabad.

While providing the background of the first National Bank of Pakistan Awards for Excellence in Literature, Yousuf Jamal, president of the bank's literary society and adviser to the Sindh governor, said the bank under the leadership of its first managing director, Mumtaz Hasan, held such literary functions back in the 1960s as well, when three or four awards were given for intellectual achievements. “But,” he said, “all such activities came to a standstill in the '70s and have just been revived over the past six or seven years.”

About the current awards for excellence in literature, he said “NBP has sanctioned Rs3.2 million solely for this purpose. There are eight literary awards in all - four for Urdu in the categories of 'prose', 'poetry', 'research and criticism' and 'humour'. The remaining four awards are for literary works in Sindhi, Balochi, Punjabi and Pashto.

“Only original works published from 2007 and 2008 were considered as per the rules. Also, the works were not to contain extremism and anything that went against the teachings of Islam or were disrespectful to the country,” Mr Jamal said.

“We received as many as 415 entries for the specified period. The scrutiny included two initial phases where special panels were set up to shortlist the literary works. But the final decision was left to the Pakistan Writers Guild.” NBP President Syed Ali Raza said he was glad to restart this tradition of honouring the country's literary figures through this competition, which would now be held on an annual basis.