CWG medallists to be honoured at district level: Haryana govt

The Haryana government has said the 22 Commonwealth Games medallists from the state would now be honoured at the district level.

"All deputy commissioners have been directed to organise functions to honour sportspersons of their respective district," Haryana Sports and Youth Affairs Minister Anil Vij said.

The Manohar Lal Khattar government had earlier stirred up a controversy when it decided to reduce the prize money for the CWG medallists from Haryana employed with other departments or states.

A state-level felicitation function planned for the prize money distribution on April 26 had to be cancelled when the athletes threatened to boycott it.

Courting yet another controversy earlier this month, the Haryana government had asked sportspersons employed by it to deposit one-third of their earnings from commercial and professional commitments to the state sports council but put the notification on hold after drawing sharp criticism from elite athletes.

On June 22, the Haryana government had said all the 22 CWG medallists would be given cash prizes without any deduction.

Haryana players had won nine gold medal, six silver medal and seven bronze medals in the Commonwealth Games.

Vij said that as per the Sports Policy, the gold medallists would be given class-A government job and Rs 1.50 crore as award money.

Similarly, the silver medal winners would be given class-B government job and Rs 1 crore and bronze medal winners class-C government job and Rs 50 lakh.

Apart from this, each participating sportsperson would also be provided Rs 7.5 lakh as incentive money.