Petroleum Minister Murli Deora, who is also the patron of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), has announced cash incentives to the Indian medal winners in the Commonwealth Games.
In a decision taken by the Board Sunday morning, it was decided that the gold medalist would be awarded a cash prize of Rs. 10 lakh, Silver medalist Rs. 7.5 lakhand Bronze medalist Rs. 5 lakh.
Describing the significance of the decision, Deora said that this will go a long way in promoting sports in the country. He expressed hope that the lead provided by the oil PSUs and PSPB will encourage youngsters to take sports as a career.
PSPB has to its credit promoting some of the leading players of the country in various games like Ronjan Sodhi (Shooting); Ms Saina Naiwal, Chetan Anand, Ms Jwala Gutta, V Diju (Badminton); Sharad Kamal, Soumyadeep Roy, Ms Poulami Ghatak, Subojit Saha, A Amal Raj (Table Tennis); some of the prominent athletes like Ms Harvant Kaur (Discuss), Om Prakash (Shotput), Ms Sinimone Paulose (800 mtrs), Ms Chitra, Ms Mandeep, Ms Jauna Murmur and Ms Tiana (4 x 400) ; Jagsir Singh (Javelin) and Rohan Boppana (Tennis). Nearly 50 sports persons affiliated to PSPB are representing India in the Games.
Deora was very much impressed by the overall arrangements in-place for hosting a successful mega event like CWG. He observed that Delhi is in a strong grip of the spirit of the games.
R S Sharma, President PSPB & CMD ONGC also stated that with the announcement Indian athlete will be further motivated to give their best in CWG 2010 and bring glory to the nation by winning maximum medals.
He said that PSPB will continue to play a vital role in the development of sports in country. In this endeavour PSPB is setting up an Archery Academy at Bolpur(West Bengal), in addition to its existing Table Tennis Academy at Ajmer.
PSPB is a leading body of oil PSUs for promotion and development of sports in the country.