The selection committee for the Professor Yashwantrao Kelkar Youth Award–2025 has selected Shrikrishna Pandey “Azad”, President of the Smile Roti Bank Foundation (Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh), for this year’s award. He has been carrying out remarkable work to bring about social change through various initiatives such as preventing child begging, rehabilitating and serving destitute persons suffering from mental illness, counselling inmates in different prisons for emotional development and helping them leave criminal tendencies to rejoin the mainstream of society, and undertaking efforts to curb substance abuse. This award will be presented during the 71st National Conference of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, scheduled to be held in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, from November 28-30 2025.
This award, initiated in 1991, is presented in memory of Professor Yeshwantrao Kelkar, known as the architect of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and is remembered for his role in the organisational expansion and strengthening of ABVP. Prof. Yashwantrao Kelkar played a significant role in establishing and defining the ideological foundation, organisational development, and working methodologies of ABVP. This award is a joint initiative of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and Vidyarthi Nidhi Trust, organisations committed to work for the progress and education of students.
The award aims to highlight the contribution of young social entrepreneurs, encourage them, express gratitude towards their work, and inspire young Bharatiya individuals to involve themselves in social work. The award includes a sum of Rs 1,00,000/-, a certificate, and a memento.
Shrikrishna Pandey “Azad”, selected for the Prof. Yashwantrao Kelkar Youth Award–2025, has given a new life to more than two thousand destitute persons with mental illnesses in Gorakhpur and nearby districts of Uttar Pradesh through care, service, and medical assistance.
He has been consistently working with success to bring about a positive change in the mindset of inmates lodged in various district Jails of Uttar Pradesh by offering counselling and organising different creative activities, enabling them to abandon criminal tendencies and reintegrate into the mainstream of society. Shrikrishna Pandey has made noteworthy efforts in preventing child begging and substance abuse. He has also associated many young people with cleanliness and environmental protection activities, training them and engaging them in various positive and transformative initiatives.
To curb child begging and child labour, he regularly conducts awareness programmes at public places and identifies children involved in begging, for whose support he has also operated two rehabilitation centres. He has previously been honoured for his social work by the Government of Uttar Pradesh as well as various other institutions.
ABVP National President Dr. Rajsharan Shahi, National General Secretary Dr. Virendra Singh Solanki, National Organising Secretary Shri Ashish Chauhan, and Convener of Selection Committee, Prof. Milind Marathe, extend heartfelt congratulations to the winner of the ‘Prof Yeshwantrao Kelkar Youth Award 2025’ – Shri Shrikrishna Pandey, wishing him success in his future endeavours.
