WR accomplish new record by winning 7 national awards at ABCI event

Western Railway has once again won accolades for its creative excellence and set a record in itself by bagging 7 National Awards from Association of Business Communicators of India (ABCI) including the most coveted ‘Champion of Champions’ trophy. These awards are given every year by ABCI for creative excellence in the field of Business Communication.

This year, Western Railway has bagged the awards in various categories for its popular in-house magazine ‘Rail Darpan’, Table Calendar, Exhibition Collateral as well as Corporate Film category. The ‘Champion of Champions’ trophy has been conferred to W. Rly for the second consecutive year in a row. Over the years, Western Railway has consistently won many national and prestigious awards for its creative excellence at various levels, which has been widely appreciated.

According to a press release issued by Sumit Thakur – Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, the ABCI awards are presented every year for creative excellence in the field of professional communication at pan India level. The list of awardees includes large corporate institutions such as Tata Motors, Tata Chemicals, Indian Oil, Reserve Bank of India, Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd., State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Union Bank of India, Life Insurance Corporation of India and Bank of India among many others.

Western Railway is the prime government organization which has set a record of achieving of these prestigious awards for the 18th consecutive year. The trophies were received by Sumit Thakur – Chief Public Relations Officer and Chief Editor of ‘Rail Darpan’ along with the main team of Editorial Board comprising of Senior Public Relations Officers Gajanan Mahtpurkar & C. Nitin Kumar David and Public Relations Officer Sunil Singh.

Rail Darpan magazine got the maximum awards to its kitty. Three Silver trophies were received for Rail Darpan in ‘Bilingual Publication Category’, ‘Special Feature Category’ and ‘Hindi Feature Category’, besides two other Silver Trophies went to the attractive Table Calendar of the year 2019 and W. Rly Corporate Film. Also, the impressive Exhibition Gallery organized by the Public Relations Department of Western Railway bagged the Gold Trophy under the exhibition category of ABCI Awards.

This exhibition was set up on the occasion of ‘National Rail Week’ organized in Bhopal in 2018. The Corporate Film produced by Public Relations Department of Western Railway focused on the various aspects of the historic & heritage section of Patalpani – Kalakund in Ratlam Division. Western Railway’s bilingual in-house magazine ‘Rail Darpan’ has gained popularity at the national level for its excellent editing style, elegant and readable content, attractive layout, special poetic compositions of veteran poets and poets, interviews of eminent personalities and superior print quality.

The special feature published on Women Empowerment under Special English Feature in July, 2018 issue of “Rail Darpan” bagged the Silver Trophy. Apart from this, a special article of famous poet and writer Ashkaran Atal “Filmi Duniya ke Staayi Patr” which was also published in the same issue of ‘Rail Darpan’ was awarded the silver trophy under the Hindi feature category. The same edition of ‘Rail Darpan’ magazine also received the Silver Trophy of National level Award under ‘Bilingual Publication Category’.

It is worth mentioning that ‘Rail Darpan’ has been awarded as the country’s best in-house magazine in the year 2011 by the Department of Official Language, Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India. The prestigious award was received from President of India on 14 September, 2011 by the then General Manager of Western Railway. Overall, Western Railway has bagged six prestigious awards, which consist of one gold and five silver trophies.

In addition to these, Western Railway has also bagged the most coveted trophy of the ‘Champion of Champions’. Thakur further informed that, this year more than 1250 entries were received for the ABCI AWARDS from 89 institutions in the private as well as public sector across the country in 30 diverse categories of professional communications, out of which a total of 177 awards were distributed to 59 award winning organizations.

The 59th ABCI Annual Prize Distribution Function Program for entries published in the year 2018, was held on 4th December, 2020 in the auditorium of Indian Merchant Chambers in South Mumbai. On this occasion Prashant Karulkar, Chairman of the well-known Arkfin Group was present as the Chief Guest. At the outset, President of the association Yogesh Joshi welcomed all the guests. It is noteworthy to mention that Association of Business Communicators of India is the second oldest and reputed organization in the world in the field of business communication.