Veteran Marathi author Vinda Karandikar, who has given a new dimension to poetry with his experimentation with form, was chosen for the prestigious Jnanpith Award for 2003.

The selection board for the 39th Jnanpith Award has decided to confer Jnanpith Award for 2003 on 87-year-old Karandikar, said an release issued by the Bhartatiya Jnanpith on Sunday.

Karandikar 'is perhaps the most experimental and the most comprehensive of all modern Marathi poets,' it said.

'As an essayist, critic and translator, he has very significant achievement to his credit,' the release said, adding. 'A long creative life, fully of worldly struggles and ceaseless in its search for aesthetic perfection, is at the back of this achievement.'

Karandikar has also been the recipient of many prestigious awards including the Keshavsut Prize, the Soviet Land Nehru Literary Award, the Kabir Samman and the Senior Fellowship of Sahitya Akademi.

The selection board meeting was chaired by noted philosopher and writer L M Singhvi.

Reacting to the honour, Karandikar, an avowed socialist, told reporters at his residence in suburban Bandra in Mumbai: "This award does not belong to me. It is a respect to the tradition of poetry nurtured by Marathi language and readers for decades."

"It is an honour for this land. Please do not restrict it to me," said the poet.