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Journalism of Courage
Nearly two months after the Haryana government was forced to cancel a felicitation function for Commonwealth Games medal winners because of opposition from them to its new decision to deduct a certain amount from their prize money, Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has accorded approval to give awards to them without any deductions.
The move came days after Haryana Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Anil Vij announced he would seek the CM’s approval to give cash prizes to 22 medallists without any cuts.
Vij said Friday that these sportspersons would soon be given the award money as per the sports policy of the state Government. He said 22 sportspersons of the state had won medals in the XXI Commonwealth Games-2018 held in Gold Coast, Australia, which is 33 per cent of the total medals won by the country. Haryana players won nine gold, six silver and seven bronze medals there, he said.
Vij said that as per the state’s sports policy, a gold medal winner from Haryana would be given class-A government job along with Rs 1.50 crore as award money. Similarly, silver medal winners would be given class-B government job along with Rs one crore and bronze medal winners class-C government jobs and Rs 50 lakh as award money. Apart from this, each participating sportsperson would also be provided Rs 7.5 lakh as incentive money.
On the sports policy of the state, he said it was first of its kind under which sportspersons were being given the highest award money in the country as well as employment opportunities. The felicitation ceremony was earlier planned to be held in Panchkula on April 26. But it had to be cancelled because some players had opposed the government decision in which the admissible prize money to players was to be given after deducting the amount paid to them by the state department or agency where they are working.
