Minister presents special awards

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JUNE 5. It was meant to be one `big' day for 149 sportspersons and 18 coaches who had brought glory to the country in the past two years. However, the absence of all but two federation officials at Vigyan Bhawan and the amateur manner in which the presentation ceremony was managed by the Sports Ministry reflected the lack of seriousness with which the occasion was taken.

The lesser known among the awardees were obviously excited on this day when these special awards, totalling a whopping Rs. 1,72,49,000, were to be presented by the Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports and Mines, Mr. Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa. However, the Minister himself observed the disdain with which the officials of the sports federation had treated the presentation ceremony.

``I don't see the officials of the sports federations..., it is a sad sign for Indian sports,'' was how Mr. Dhindsa put it in his opening remarks.

Barring the federation secretaries of table tennis (Mr. Moolchand Chowhan) and weightlifting (Mr. Balbir Singh Bhatia), none of the officials, either from the Indian Olympic Association or from various federations could be seen. On the brighter side, two former India cricket captains Bishan Singh Bedi and Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi arrived well in time and their presence was a source of encouragement.

For the record, 33 chess players formed the longest list of sportspersons from a single discipline while weightlifters collected Rs. 36 lakh to take the biggest slice of the cake. Yachtsmen Aashim Mongia and Ramachandran Mahesh were presented the single-biggest cheque of Rs. 6.75 lakh each for winning the silver medal in the Enterprise World Championship at Saldhana Bay in South Africa last year.

Prominent among those who took the award in person included P.T. Usha, S. Vijayalakshmi, Koneru Humpy (both chess), Ashok Kumar (golf), Kuheli Gangulee (shooting), Poulomi Ghatak (table tennis), Kunjarani Devi, Karnam Malleshwari, Bharti Singh (all weightlifting), coaches Kamlesh Mehta (table tennis) and G. S. Sandhu (boxing).

Due to the ongoing National `A' chess championship in Mumbai, Grandmasters Dibyendu Barua, K. Sasikiran, Abhijit Kunte besides Pravin Thipsay, who was named among the coaches, could not make it. Similarly, a large number of athletes could not be present since they are away at Kiev.

The following is the list of sportspersons and coaches:

Athletics (28): P.T. Usha (Rs. 2.75 lakh), Saraswathi Dey (Rs. 75,000), Rachita Mistry (Rs. 75,000), E.B. Shyla (Rs. 75,000), Gulab Chand (Rs. 1.75 lakh), Neelam J. Singh (Rs. 1 lakh), Jyotirmoyee Sikdar (Rs. 2 lakh), M.K. Asha (Rs. 50,000), K.C. Rosakutty (Rs. 50,000), Ajit Bhaduria (Rs. 1 lakh), Gurmeet Kaur (Rs. 1 lakh), Shakti Singh (Rs. 75,000), Vinita Tripathi (Rs. 1,55,000), K.M. Beenamol (Rs. 50,000), Gojen Singh (Rs. 40,000), Gurdev Singh (Rs. 40,000), Geeta Manrai (Rs. 40,000), Harwant Kaur (Rs. 40,000), Mandip Kaur (Rs. 20,000), Kalpana Reddy (Rs. 20,000), S. Geeta (Rs. 70,000), Bindu Kumari (Rs. 20,000), Sanga Mitra (Rs. 20,000), Sukumari (Rs. 20,000), Rajni (Rs. 20,000), Kuldip S. Mann (Rs. 30,000), K.N. Bindu (Rs. 30,000) and Vinod K. Singh (Rs. 30,000).

Boxing (3): Narender Rana (Rs. 75,000), Mangesh Kumble (Rs. 30,000) and Sunil Dahiya (Rs. 30,000).

Chess (33): P. Harikrishna (Rs. 1.20 lakh), K. Sasikiran (Rs. 1,37,500), G.B. Prakash (Rs. 87,500), Abhijit Kunte (Rs. 87,500), Safira Shanaz (Rs. 50,000), S. Kidambi (Rs. 50,000), Abhijeet Gupta (Rs. 50,000), Bhagyashree Thipsay (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Sandipan Chanda (Rs. 25,000), Saptarishi Roy (Rs. 15,000), Koneru Humpy (Rs. 70,000), D.V. Prasad (Rs. 37,500), Shankar Roy (Rs. 50,000), S. Vijayalakshmi (Rs. 80,000), Anup Deshmukh (Rs. 50,000), Swati Ghate (Rs. 1 lakh), Atanu Lahiri (Rs. two lakh), Deepan Chakraborty (Rs. 45,000), Tania Sachdev (Rs. 30,000), Mary Ann Gomes (Rs. 25,000), Sanatan Dutta (Rs. 20,000), Aarthie Ramaswamy (Rs. 1 lakh), Pallavi Shah (Rs. 80,000), C. Delphin (Rs. 20,000), M.R. Venkatesh (Rs. 20,000), Kruttika Nadig (Rs. 15,000), Soumya Swaminathan (Rs. 15,000), P. Konguvel (Rs. 50,000), Esha Karvade (Rs. 20,000), Tejas Bakre (Rs. 2 lakh), Dibyendu Barua (Rs. 2 lakh), V. Saravanan (Rs. 50,000) and Neelotpal Das (Rs. 50,000).

Golf (6): Shiv Kapur (Rs. 15,000), Ashok Kumar (Rs. 30,000), Sandeep Syal (Rs. 15,000), Harshvardhan Baid (Rs. 15,000), Parnita Garewal (Rs. 15,000) and Irina Brar (Rs. 15,000).

Judo (6): Virpal Singh (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Narender Singh (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Rashim (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Prashant Verma (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Virender Singh (Rs. 75,000) and Babita Negi (Rs. 75,000).

Kayaking and Canoeing (4): Karma Toppo (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Siji Kumar Sandanandan (Rs. 1.06,250), Vaga Ram Bishnoi (Rs. 56,250) and P.K. Baroi (Rs. 75,000).

Rowing (10): Inderpal Singh (Rs. 50,000), Tarlochan Singh (Rs. 87,500), Johnson Xavier (Rs. 75,000), Raghuveer Singh (Rs. 37,500), Birbal Singh (Rs. 87,500), Jagjit Singh (Rs. 1,02,500), Pappi Singh (Rs. 1.02,500), Rajinder Prahlad Shelke (Rs. 87,500), Binu Kurian (Rs. 52,500) and Surender Singh (Rs. 75,000).

Shooting (13): A.P. Subbiah (Rs. 3 lakh), T.C. Palangappa (Rs. 3,06,250), Chetan Deshmukh (Rs. 56,250), Jaspal Rana (Rs. 5,62,500), Ved Prakash (Rs. 5,12,500), Samresh Jung (Rs. 56,250), Bhanwar Lal Dhaka (Rs. 75,000), Shilpi Singh (Rs. 75,000), Suma Dixit (Rs. 2,87,500), Kuheli Gangulee (1,75,000), Anjali Ved Pathak (Rs. 4,87,500), Vivek Singh (Rs. 3,56,250), Dhyan Singh (Rs. 75,000).

Table Tennis (8): Subhajeet Saha (Rs. 37,500), Soumyadeep Roy (Rs. 37,500), Ranbir Das (Rs. 15,000), Shubham Chaudhary (Rs. 15,000), Poulomi Ghatak (Rs. 37,500), Mouma Das (Rs. 37,500), Vishaka Vijay (Rs. 15,000) and Sushmita Roy (Rs. 15,000).

Wrestling (15): Sujeet Mann (Rs. 75,000), Mukesh Kumar (Rs. 30,000), Bijender Kumar (Rs. 40,000), Mukesh Khatri (Rs. 30,000), Satish Singh (Rs. 40,000), Jagbir Singh (Rs. 30,000), Anil Kumar (Rs. 40,000), Ajit Singh (Rs. 30,000), Yogeshwar Dutt (Rs. 50,000), Sushil Kumar (Rs. 1 lakh), Manoj Kumar (Rs. 1,05,000), Sokender Tomar (Rs. 40,000), Rajiv Tomar (Rs. 30,000), Palvinder Singh Cheema (Rs. 40,000) and Chand Ram (Rs. 30,000).

Weightlifting (21): N. Kunjarani Devi (Rs. 3 lakh), Sanamachan Chanu (Rs. 3 lakh), W. Nandini Devi (Rs. 3 lakh), P. Khoni Devi (Rs. 1.30 lakh), Ujwale Mane (Rs. 1 lakh), T. Muthu (Rs. 3.25 lakh), Sumita Laha (Rs. 75,000), D. Wilson (Rs. 75,000), N. Krishnamurthy (Rs. 1 lakh), G. Vadivelu (Rs. 1 lakh), Satish Rai (Rs. 1.50 lakh), Dalbir Singh (Rs. 2 lakh), Krishna Kumari (Rs. 2 lakh), K. Malleshwari (Rs. 3 lakh), N. Laxmi (Rs. 1.50 lakh), T.M. Sunderswaran (Rs. 1 lakh), Nandita Devi (Rs. 75,000), Bharti Singh (Rs. 2.25 lakh), Sandhya Rani (Rs. 30,000), B. Jyoti Lakshmi (Rs. 40,000) and Romi Devi (Rs. 50,000).

Yachting (2): Ashim Mongia (Rs. 6.75 lakh) and Ramachandran Mahesh (Rs. 6.75 lakh).

Coaches (18): Sunny Thomas (shooting, Rs. 1.50 lakh), Laszlo Szucsak (shooting, Rs. 1.50 lakh), Pravin Thipsay (chess, Rs. 1.90 lakh), G.S. Sandhu (boxing, Rs. 37,500), T.L. Gupta (boxing, 37,500), S.R. Singh (boxing, Rs. 30,000), Kamlesh Mehta (table tennis, Rs. 22,500), Tapan Chandra (table tennis, Rs. 22,500), Jagbir Singh Gill (rowing, Rs. 37,500), Surender Singh Wadia (rowing, Rs. 25,000), Gurusharan Singh Sohal (rowing, 25,000), Hansa Sharma (weightlifting, Rs. 1 lakh), Ramesh Babu (weightlifting, Rs. 75,000), Ajay Kumar Saroi (weightlifting, Rs. 4 lakh), P.S. Sandhu (weightlifting, Rs. 2 lakh) and A.S. Virk (weightlifting, 1.50 lakh) and U.R. Abhayan (weightlifting, Rs. 75,000).

Former sprint queen P.T. Usha receives the special award from the Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports and Mines, Mr. Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa (left) at a function in New Delhi on Monday. Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports mr. Sayed Shahnawaz Hussain is also seen.

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