LUCKNOW: Amid a crowd so large that India’s javelin gold medallist Neeraj Chopra said that he was more nervous speaking before it than performing at the Olympics, UP government honoured all the medal winners of the recently concluded Tokyo Olympic Games, along with the women’s hockey team and 10 players who hail from the state, at Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium here on Thursday.
Chief minister Yogi Adityanath announced that in its efforts to promote sports in the state, the government would adopt wrestling and one more sport for 10 years during which it will take care of all financial and other needs of sportspersons. A wrestling academy will also be opened up in Lucknow. Meanwhile, the Meerut Sports University, the CM said, will be named after India’s hockey great, Major Dhyan Chand.
Declaring that all those who did well at the Olympics, where India registered its best-ever medal haul, had represented the country, the CM announced that along with winners from UP, the state had also decided to give cash awards to all medal winners and those who stood fourth.
Accordingly, Neeraj Chopra who won gold in javelin, was given Rs 2 crore, Rs 1.5 crore awarded to silver medal winners Ravi Dahiya for wrestling and Mirabai Chanu for weightlifting and Rs 1 crore each to Lovlina Borgohain for boxing, PV Sindhu for badminton and Bajrang Punia for wrestling.
Along with this, the CM said that as the men’s hockey team had won an Olympics medal after 41 years, each member of the men’s hockey team was given Rs 1 crore while the chief coach received Rs 25 lakh and other training and support staff received Rs 10 lakh each. All 19 members of the women’s hockey team received Rs 50 lakh each for coming fourth while the coaches and support staff received Rs 10 lakh each. Deepak Punia who came fourth in wrestling and Aditi Ashok who missed the bronze by a point, were both given Rs 50 lakh each.
In addition to this, all 10 players from UP who participated in the Olympics received Rs 25 lakh each. Two medal winners from UP were Lalit Upadhyay who was member of the men’s hockey team while Vandana Kataria, who belongs to Uttarakhand but has been trained in UP, was a part of the women’s hockey team. Mirabai Chanu’s coach Brajesh Sharma, who hails from Ghaziabad, was honoured with Rs 10 lakh.
“These players gave their best performance in the middle of the Covid pandemic. This shows that a sportsperson plays for the country. The country is supreme for them which is why they are able to perform like this,” the CM said, thanking Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his “encouragement and guidance”.
The CM said that UP would soon emerge ahead of other states in promoting sports. For this, it was working to promote sports under Khelo India Khelo and had set up a vast sports infrastructure in the state. To give a further push to sports, the government was setting up one playing field and an open gym in each village.
“We have decided to increase the diet funds for people living in residential facilities at sports colleges from Rs 250 per person per day to Rs 375. All persons from UP who win medals in the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games or in World Cup championships will be recruited directly on government posts of as deputy SP. We are also developing sports infrastructure in all districts,” the CM said.
The CM also announced an increase in grants for various sporting events. For players to prepare for international events, the grant has gone up from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 25 lakh. The same for Asian Games has been increased from Rs 3 lakh to Rs 15 lakh, for national sub-junior, junior and senior from Rs 50,000 to Rs 5 lakh respectively, from Rs 1,12,500 to Rs 15 lakh if competitions of all categories happen together, from Rs 50,000 to Rs 1.5 lakh for All India Memorial Competitions and from Rs 10,000 to Rs 50,000 for state events.
