Chandigarh Sports Dept to disburse cash awards worth Rs 5.5 cr

The UT Sports Department will honour international-level achievers from Chandigarh, as per the previous policy, and recent medal winners at national events, as per the new policy, at a function to be held at the Punjab Bhawan next month after getting the Administrator’s approval. This will help the department clear the backlog of awardees.

The names of awardees have been finalised after getting approval of a committee and their bank details have been taken for releasing the amount online. A total cash awards of nearly Rs 5 crore will be given to national achievers, as per the New Sports Policy, and nearly Rs 50 lakh to those who have bagged laurels for the city at international level from 2018 till the formation of the New Sports Policy in 2023.

“The award ceremony will be held next month. The procedure of finalising the names of the awardees and taking their details has been completed. The medal winners at the national events will be awarded as per the New Sports Policy, while the international achievers — from 2018 to 2023 — will be awarded as per the old policy. The backlog was pending for a long time. After getting all necessary approvals a committee was set up to go ahead with the procedure,” said Sorabh Kumar Arora, Director Sports, UT Administration.

Last year, the UT Administration had awarded city’s top meritorious sportspersons, who excelled at international and national level, on the National Sports Day.

As many as 311 international and national achievers from the city were awarded cash prizes totalling to nearly Rs 4 crore.

The New Sports Policy was implemented on August 28, 2023. Meritorious sportspersons who had bagged medals for Chandigarh after August 28, 2023, have been given monetary benefits as per the New Sports Policy. As per the new policy’s cash award classification, an Olympics/Paralympic Games medallist will be given Rs 6 crore for gold medal, Rs 4 crore for silver and Rs 2.5 crore for bronze. Similarly, Rs 3 crore, Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 75 lakh will be given for the first three position holders in the Asian/Para Asian Games. For Commonwealth Games/ Para Commonwealth Games, the cash awards will Rs 1.5 crore, Rs 75 lakh and Rs 50 lakh, respectively.

At the last year’s function, the department had agreed to hold another event to felicitate left-out sportspersons who had excelled at international level.