Bhubaneswar: The Odisha culture minister Jyoti Panigrahi Monday handed over Dharmapada Awards for excellence in fine arts for seven years from 2009 to 2015 to seven artistes visiting them in their homes.

The awardees are Gokul Bihari Patnaik-2009, Asim Basu-2010, Durga Prasad Das-2011, Sudarsan Sahu-2012, Jatin Das-2013, Dinanath Path, and Raghunath Mohapatra -2015.

The Dharmapada Award, the highest award of Odisha government for life time achievement in fine arts could not been declared for over 10 years due to legal hurdles.