Kapil Dev to lead awards committees

Incidentally, Kapil had led the committees once before in 2001,when shooter Abhinav Bindra was controversially awarded the Khel Ratna Award.

Like Kapil, Prakash Padukone gets another chance to be on the committee. The genial All-England champ was made the chairman in 2002, but he was not happy with the treatment meted out to him. In fact, he had said he was surprised to be replaced by another person the following year while he thought he had a two-year stint.

Kapil will be helped by a battery of experts from various disciplines in picking the nominees this year. They are Karnam Malleswari weightlifting, PT Usha athletics, Leander Paes tennis, Bhaichung Bhutia football, Sita Gosain hockey, Indu Puri TT, SN Mukherjee vice-chancellor, LNIPE, Anjali Bhagwat shooting, Limba Ram archery, Ram Mehar Singh kabaddi and Atulya Mishra secretary sport, Maharashtra.

Though Kapil will also be the chairman of the Dronacharya committee, it will be headed by Padukone. He will also shoulder the additional responsibility of chairing the Dhyanchand Award committee. Prakash will be assisted by Nirupama Mankad tennis, Suma Shirur shooting, Michael Ferriera, MP Ganesh hockey, Bahadur Singh athletics, Brojeswari Devi judo, Subhash Verma wrestler, Shyam Sunder Rao volleyball, GS Bangu hockey, Munnuswamy Venu boxing and Shankar Menon secretary sport, Tamil Nadu.

As usual, they will consult and coordinate with three people from the sports ministry 8212; joint secretary I Srinivaas, SAI Director General Ratan Wattal, and deputy secretary with the minister, who will be the convenor.