The first edition of Mirchi Music Awards Punjabi was announced here Wednesday. The awards aim to honour artistes from both the film and non-film categories of the Punjabi music industry.
Song of the year, album of the year, male vocalist of the year, female vocalist of the year, music composer of the year and lyricist of the year are some of the important awards that will be given Dec 14 at a mega event in Jalandhar.
To ensure that the entire judging process is fair and transparent, it is done through secret voting, managed by audit firm Ernst & Young.
Over 1,800 Punjabi songs were judged by jury members, including those of Charanjit Ahuja, Rajiee Shinde, Gurpreet Ghuggi, Malkit Singh, Shamsher Singh Sandhu, Jaspinder Narula and Sachin Ahuja.
Mirchi Music Awards are organised by Radio Mirchi 98.3 FM and recognise multiple languages including Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.
"For the encouragement of Punjabi music artistes, it is important to have such awards," Charanjit told reporters.
Babu Singh Maan said: "We have gone from 16 songs a year to 1,800 songs in a year, which is a great achievement."