In a meeting of the General Council of the Akademi held on 29 November 2003 in Chennai, 33 eminent artists were selected for Akademi Awards for the year 2003. Each Award of Sangeet Natak Akademi carries a purse of Rs. 50,000, a shawl and a tamrapatra.The Akademi Awards Presentation Ceremony was held at Vigyan Bhavan, New Delhi, on 26 October 2004. The awards were presented by the President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in the presence of
Shri Jaipal Reddy, Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Neena Ranjan, Secretary, Ministry of Culture, and Smt. Sonal Mansingh, Chairman, Sangeet Natak Akademi. The ceremony opened with the singing of the National Anthem by students of Kathak Kendra, New Delhi.

The names of Award winners for 2003 are given below:

Music
Ghulam Mustafa Waris Khan Yeshwant Balkrishna Joshi
Arvind Natverlal Parikh
Bhawani Shankar Kathak
Trichur Vaidyanatha Ramachandran
Mandayam Annadorai Narasimhachar
Avasarala Kanyakumari
Kadri Gopalnath
C. K. Balagopalan

Dance
Sunayana Hazarilal
Urmila Nagar
Sadanam P. V. Balakrishnan
Thiyam Suryamukhi Devi
Kalavati Devi
K. Uma Rama Rao
Hare Krishna Behera

Theatre
Arun Sarma
Ratnakar Ramkrishna Matkari
Devendra Raj Ankur
Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry
Saoli Mitra
C.R. Simha
Sreenivas G. Kappanna
Anant Gopal Shinde

Traditional/Folk/Tribal Dance, Music, Theatre & Puppetry
Laisram Birendrakumar Singh
Prabhat Sarma
Leela Omchery
Chukka Satthiah
Bhalchandra Vyankatesh Pendharkar
Banamali Maharana
Puran Bhaat
Kosha Kanta Deva Goswami

Scholarship/Overall Contribution in Performing Arts P. V. Subramaniam (Subbudu)