The Haryana Chief Minister Manohar lal on Tuesday gave away cash awards amounting to over Rs53 crore to 158 outstanding sportspersons of the State and announced a bonanza of incentives for players of Haryana.
Presiding over a ‘felicitation ceremony of medal winning players of Haryana organised here, the Chief Minister announced that benefit of reservation in recruitments to be made through Haryana Public Service Commission (HPSC) would be given to outstanding sportspersons of the State who would win medals in international events. This benefit of reservation would be on the pattern of Haryana Staff Selection Commission.
Manohar lal announced that a national-level wrestling competition would be organised on the occasion of Golden Jubilee of the State during 2016-17 and a cash prize of Rs1 crore would be awarded to ‘Bharat Kesari’.
On the occasion of felicitation ceremony, a sum of Rs40 crore was given away to 36 medal winners of 17th Asian Games held in South Korea during 2014 and 33 participating players were awarded cash prizes of Rs1.65 crore. Apart from this, cash prizes of Rs8.50 crore were given to eight medal winners in Para-Asian Games and Rs55 lakh to 11 participants.
The cash prizes of Rs90 lakh were given away to 28 medal winners at international level during 2013-14 and over Rs1.5 crore to 42 participants in sports competitions of international-level during the year 2014-15.
The Chief Minister said that with a view to promote Kabbadi, a Kabbadi competition would also be organised in the State and its winners would also be honoured appropriately.
Speaking on the occasion, Sports and Youth affairs Minister, Anil Vij said that academies and nurseries were being set up in the state to promote sports among youth. The State Government is making a provision of providing insurance facility for sports persons. Also, there is a plan to provide pension to players, he said.
The Sports and Youth Affairs Department has been compiling data of all players digitally and probably Haryana would be the first such state to have digital data of players, added the Minister.
He informed that today about Rs55 crore have been awarded to the outstanding players. These sports persons had made excellent performance during the tenure of previous Congress-led State Government, but the then Government had neither allocated any budget not did it give cash prizes to them. There are about 2,700 players in the State who would be covered in three phases.
In this series, the second such function would be organized on August 29, 2015 and third function on September 6, 2015 in Gurgaon.