Srinivas Goud felicitates Indian Olympic contingent

The Sports Minister announced that the TS govt will award Rs. 2 crores to those who bag gold medal in Tokyo Olympics

Hyderabad: Tourism and Sports Minister V Srinivas Goud on Wednesday felicitated the athletes and coaches who will be representing India at the Tokyo Olympics, at Gachibowli Mini Stadium in Hyderabad here. Badminton players PV Sindhu, Sai Praneeth, Chirag Shetty, and Satwik Sairaj, along with coaches Pullela Gopichand, Ismail Baig, N Ramesh, Agus Dwi Santoso (Indonesia), Park Tae-Sang (Korean) and Mathias Boe (Denmark), received the honours.

Earlier, the Minister had also felicitated tennis ace Sania Mirza’s father Imran Mirza as the tennis ace will be representing India at Tokyo Olympics.  He presented a cheque of Rs. 5 lakh to Imran Mirza as an incentive from State sports to Sania Mirza for participating in the Olympics.

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Speaking on the occasion, Srinivas Goud said after formation of Telangana, Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has been sanctioning funds for sports infra development and support to sports persons. Since formation of the State, the Chief Minister has Rs.25.87 crore to different sports persons as incentives, he said. He added that about Rs 46.85 crore were sanctioned to develop sports stadia in all Assembly constituencies across the State. Further, the government is developing sports academies at Karimnagar, Adilabad, Warangal, Khammam, Wanaparthy, Saroornagar, and Mahabubnagar at an expenditure of Rs 14.21 crore to encourage sports in the State.

The Chief Minister has constituted a Cabinet sub committee for transforming Telangana into sports hub. The Committee will be framing a sports policy, sports development and provision of infrastructure. Efforts were on to come up with a best sports policy in the country, he said.

As per Industries Minister KT Rama Rao’s directions several corporate companies were extending support in sports infra development and promotion of sports under their corporate social responsibility programmes, he said.

The State Government was extending Rs.2 crore cash incentive for sports persons bagging gold in Olympics. This much higher than the Rs.50,000 cash incentive awarded in United Andhra Pradesh, he pointed out.

For silver medal, the cash incentive was increased from Rs 25 lakh to Rs. 1 crore and bronze medal it was revised from Rs. 10 to Rs.50 lakh, he informed.

Sports Secretary KS Srinivas Raju, Sports Authority of Telangana State chairman Allipuram Venkateshwar Reddy and other officials were also present.

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