PANAJI: Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) distributed a total of more than Rs 31 Lakh, to 86 meritorious sportspersons for excelling at the international and national level; at a grand ceremony at Campal here today. Grants to the tune of Rs 70 lakh, were also released to State Sports Associations.
Chief Minister, Dr Pramod Sawant was the chief guest and presented the cash awards to the Goan sports stars in the presence of Deputy-CM and Sports Minister, Babu Azgaonkar. Secretary for Sports (Govt of Goa), J Ashok Kumar, IAS; Director of Sports & Youth Affairs (DSYA), Chaitanya Prasad, IAS; SAG Executive Director, V M Prabhu Desai, SAG Director of Coaching, Bruno Coutinho, and Goa Olympic Association secretary-general, Gurudatta Bhakta were also present.
In his address, CM Dr Sawant assured full support to the sportspersons and the sports fraternity in general while urging them to keep working hard to achieve greater goals. He also appealed to the society to focus on the fitness aspect as a way of life stressed by the Central government schemes like Fit India Movement and just-launched Fit India Quiz.
The Chief Minister emphasised on the greater amount of prize money in the offing for meritorious sportspersons and also stated that the government wants to develop Sports City at Dhargal in view of the goal of drawing top international and national sports events to Goa. He also called upon the State Sports Associations to come up with a programme to ensure the functionality of the Sports Policy.
Dr Sawant asserted that the physical education teachers should help in ‘sports talent search’ from the remotest parts of the state so that a bigger number of children can utilise the infrastructure. He also wished a reporting system could be formulated where the human resources from the schools network could pass on the talent pool data to SAG coaches. The CM also declared that the track and field stadium at Bambolim will be named after (late) Milkha Singh – The Flying Sikh.
DyCM and Sports Minister, Babu Azgaonkar urged the sportspersons to raise the bar and not be satisfied with their achievements.
Secretary (Sports), J Ashok Kumar, who is also the CEO of National Games Goa, underlined the endeavour to host the Games with the pending infrastructure work scheduled to be completed earnestly.
Long-serving Executive Director of SAG, V M Prabhu Desai highlighted the tremendous performances notched up by the Goan sportspersons and expressed confidence that the scale would grow exponentially in the future.
The audience comprised of sportspersons, members of State Sports Associations, and parents among others.
