Every year, ISLE provides two awards to young scholars below 35 years of age.

Best Paper Awards

The Surjit Singh Memorial Award carrying an award of Rs. 25,000/- and L.K. Deshpande Young Labour Economist Award carrying an amount of Rs. 10,000 are awarded to the authors of the best papers at the Annual Conference of the Indian Society of Labour Economics. Only authors who are below 35 years of age will be considered for these awards. The papers on any of the Conference themes to be considered for the award should be presented by the paper writers themselves. Contributors who wish to be considered for these awards are to furnish proof of their age along with their paper.

Prof. Lalit K. Deshpande was one of the towering labour economists in India who has been closely associated with the ISLE. He was its Conference President in 1989.

Prof. Surjit Singh was the Honorary Secretary of the Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE) since 2009 and continued to hold the post till his sudden demise in December 2013. His wife and daughter gave an endowment fund in his memory for supporting the promotion of research in the field of labour economics. Since 2015, the Society has been giving one award to a young labour economist below the age of 35 years for undertaking research in the field of labour and employment studies.