Manipur govt. announces hike in incentives for medal winners at Commonwealth Games, National Games

Our Correspondent
Imphal, Dec. 20 (EMN): Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh on Tuesday announced to increase the incentives awarded to medal winners of Commonwealth Games (CWG) and National Games.

Biren Singh made the announcement while felicitating the medal winners and participants of the 36th National Games-2022 held in Gujarat and 2nd North East Olympic Games-2022 , Shillong in Imphal.

He informed that the incentives awarded to gold medallists of CWG will be increased from INR 15 lakh to INR 20 lakh, silver medallists from INR 10 lakh to INR 15 lakh and that of participants will be provided INR 4 lakh.

Regarding the National Games he announced that incentives for individual players winning gold, silver and bronze will be increased to INR 5 lakh, INR 3 lakh and INR 2 lakh respectively. For the team, the incentives for gold, silver and bronze medals will be increased to INR 15 lakh, INR 10 lakh and INR 5 lakh respectively, he added.

Acknowledging the efforts of coaches for the achievements of players, Biren also announced to increase incentives for coaches from INR 5 lakh to INR 7 lakh for gold, from INR 3 lakh to INR 5 lakh for silver and that of bronze from INR 1 lakh to INR 3 lakh.

Biren also stated the Manipur government has initiated the process of increasing the sitting capacity of the gallery of Khuman Lampak Main Stadium in Imphal to around 70,000.

He deliberated on the plan to construct a stadium with crowd capacity of 1 lakh and mentioned the identification of land measuring 50 acres at Imphal West District for the same. He further informed that the Manipur Olympian Park which is being developed at Sangaithel would be inaugurated soon and Union Home Minister Amit Shah had been invited to inaugurate it.

The chief minister urged young athletes of the state not just to aim for getting a government job after winning medals in national events,but rather aim for the Olympic Games. He added that the government would also discuss matters relating to providing jobs to gold medal winning players at the National level.

Youth Affairs and Sports (YAS) Minister Govindas Konthoujam, while addressing the gathering, stated that games and sports is the field which has made Manipur known to the world.

Manipur Olympic Association President Dr. Th Radheshyam stressed the need of sportspersons to be passionate to win medals, stressing on the importance of collaboration and not competition amongst different associations to achieve progress in the field of games and sports.

Cash rewards of INR 10,000, INR 7,000 and INR 5000 were given to gold, silver and bronze medal winners of 36th National Games-2022, Gujarat. Further, a cash reward of INR 10,000 was given to the associations of 18 disciplines which participated in the 2nd North East Olympic Games-2022, Shillong.