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According to OALD contribution to/towards is correct usage, but in the following sentence

The country’s highest film honour, the Dadasaheb Phalke award, conferred for “outstanding contribution for the growth and development of Indian cinema” will be presented this year to Amitabh Bachchan.

Contribution for is used. Is that correct?

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  • This is a simple preposition type of question, with the entire sentence / context included. What's potentially missing are the sources of the quote and OALD entry. There's no real reason to close this.
    – user3395
    Sep 24, 2019 at 21:42

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The form "contribution to X" or "contribution towards X" is certainly the usual form in US or UK English. "contribution for" could be used to indicate the purpose of the contribution, rather than the thing contributed to, such as:

Jones made a large contribution for feeding the hungry.

But this is not the construction in the question.

It may be that a phrase such as "outstanding contribution for the growth and development of Indian cinema” would be usual in Indian English, I don't know. It is certainly not natural in US English, nor, I think, in UK or Canadian English. But I expect that most fluent speakers of any variety of English would understand it correctly, and I hesitate to label it as "wrong". But I advise learners not to imitate this example.