The Hindu : Change in Arjuna Award selection process

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 04, 2002

Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Change in Arjuna Award selection process

By Our Sports Reporter

NEW DELHI APRIL 3. The Union Sports Minister, Uma Bharti, on Wednesday announced major changes in the process to select Arjuna awardees.

Among the important measures, the Sports Ministry has decided to keep out Ministers from the selection panel and give more representation to sportspersons. The panel will be headed by a sportsperson of eminence instead of the Sports Minister.

The 13-member selection committee will comprise five Olympians from different disciplines, four Arjuna awardees from different disciplines, two sports administrators, one each from the federations and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and the deputy secretary of the Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs as member-secretary.

Henceforth, medals won at international meets alone will be considered as the basis for selection of the awardees. The `lifetime contribution' Arjuna award which triggered a bitter debate on the last occasion following the selection of athlete Rachna Govil and a few others, has been put into a separate category and named after hockey wizard Dhyan Chand.

That debate plus the one started by Milkha Singh who refused to accept the `lifetime contribution' Arjuna award as he felt that it was humiliating that he was being chosen so late in the day, prompted the ministry to review the whole selection process.

A series of meetings were held with sports administrators and sportspersons to find ways and means to improve the process, eventually leading to a more acceptable selection panel.

"We wanted to make the selection process for the Arjuna Awards objective and interference-free,'' said Ms. Bharti.

Insisting that the "earlier process was also good,'' Ms. Bharti said, with the passage of time "the process needed to be changed and we have obliged the several suggestions that came up.''

According to the new guidelines, performance of sportspersons in Olympic sports will be judged over three years. Unlike in the past, achievements at the national level will not to considered. However, to give a boost to indigenous sport such as kabaddi and kho-kho the respective federations will have to make an extra effort to popularise the sport in other countries and organise competitions to be eligible for the Arjuna awards.

The ministry has also proposed to limit the number of awards given in a year. There will be a maximum 15 sportspersons selected for the award in a year, while in the case of Dhyan Chand Award, a maximum three persons will be named. The prize money for the Arjuna Award has also been doubled to Rs. three lakhs.

Ms. Bharti said that if any Arjuna awardee was later caught for doping, the award would be withdrawn.

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