New Delhi, July 22 (IANS) Eminent film director Tapan Sinha has been selected for the Dada Saheb Phalke Award for the year 2006 for his outstanding contribution to Indian cinema.

The award carries a cash price of Rs.1 million, a Swarna Kamal citation and a shawl, an official statement said here Monday evening.

Tapan Sinha, who has made films like 'Ek Doctor Ki Maut' (1991) and 'Adalat O Ekti Meye' (1982), has won 19 National Film Awards as well as won laurels in international film festivals like in Berlin, Venice, London, Moscow, San Francisco and Locarno.

He began his film career as a sound engineer in Kolkata's New Theatre in 1946. In 1950, he got the opportunity of working a Pinewood Studios in Britain where he spent two years. On his return to India, he turned his attention to directing films. He made films in Bengali, Hindi and Oriya.

He made three films based on Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore's works: 'Kabuliwala', 'Khudito Pashan' and 'Atithi'.

'Tapan Sinha's cinematic works are amazingly down-to-earth depiction of the struggles of the common man. His reputation as an uncompromising filmmaker, a celluloid iconoclast, puts him in a class of his own,' the statement said.

Sinha's name was selected by a committee comprising eminent film personalities Shyam Benegal , Gautam Ghosh, A.Nageshwar Rao, Sharmila Tagore and renowned flute player Hari Prasad Chaurasia.