The General Council of the Akademi also selected forty-three (43) artists from the field of Music, Dance, Theatre, Traditional /Folk/ Tribal Music/ Dance/ Theatre, Puppetry and Overall contribution / scholarship in Performing Arts for the Sangeet Natak Akademi Awards (Akademi Puraskar) for the year 2016.
These forty-three (43) artists include two joint awards.
In the field of Music, eleven eminent artists, namely Padma Talwalkar and Prabhakar Karekar for Hindustani Vocal Music, Arvind Mulgaonkar for Hindustani Instrumental Music-Tabla, Kala Ramnath for Hindustani Instrumental Music-Violin, Neela Ramgopal and K Omanakutty for Carnatic Vocal Music, J. Vaidyanathan for Carnatic Instrumental Music-Mridangam, Mysore M Manjunath for Carnatic Instrumental Music-Violin, Ningthoujam Shyamchand Singh (Nata Sankirtana, Manipur), Ratnarnala Prakash and Ahmad Hussain
Shri Mohd. Hussain- Hussajn Brothers (joint award) for Other Major Traditions of Music—Sugam Sangeet have been selected for the Akademi Awards 2016.
Pappu Venugopal Rao for scholarship and Avinash Pascricha for overall contribution have been selected for the Akademi Awards 2016 in the field of Overall Contribution / Scholarship to Performing Arts.
In the field of Dance, nine eminent artists have been selected for the Akademi Awards 2016, namely, Geeta Chandran for Bharatanatyam, Jitendra Maharaj for Kathak, Kalamandalam Ramachandran Unnithan for Kathakali, Maisnam Kaminikumar Singh for Manipuri, A B Bala Kondala Rao for Kuchipudi, Ratikant Mohapatra for Odissi, Haricharan Bhuyan Borbayan for Sattriya Dance, Gopal Prasad Dubey for Chhau and Anita R Ratnam for Contemporary Dance.
In the field of Theatre, nine eminent artists have been selected for Akademi Awards 2016: Kusum Kumar for Playwriting, Satyabrata Rout, Bipin Kumar and Rajkamal Nayak for Direction, Gireesan V, Oinam Biramangol Singh and Mohan Joshi for Acting, Anjana Puri for Allied Theatre Arts— Music for theatre, K Govind Bhat for Other Major Traditions of Theatre—Yakshagana.
In the field of Traditional/Folk/Tribal Music/Dance/Theatre and Puppetry, ten artistes have been selected for Akademi Awards 2016, they are Annabattula Lakshmi Mangatayaru and Leela Sai- Joint award (Traditional Theatre-Kalavantulu, Andhra Pradesh), Yogesh Gadhavi (Folk Music of Gujarat), Vidyanand Saraik (Folk Music of Himachal Pradesh), Somnath D Chari (Traditional Music of Goa), Laxmidhar Raut (Pala, Odisha), Chiranji Lal (Mand of Rajasthan), Gulzar Ahmad Ganie (Chakri Music of Jammu & Kashmir), Braj Kishore Dubey (Folk Music of Bihar), Prabhitangsu Das and Dattatreya Aralikatte for Puppetry.
The honour of Akademi Fellow has been conferred since 1954 and Akademi Award since 1952.
These honours not only symbolize the highest standard of excellence and achievements, but also recognize sustained individual work and contribution. The honour of Akademi Fellow carries a purse money of Rs 3,00,000/- (Rupees three lakh) and Akademi Award carries Rs 1,00,000/- (Rupees one lakh), besides a Tamrapatra and Angavastram.