By IANS,
Lucknow : Sportspersons from Uttar Pradesh who earned honours at the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games were Friday given cash prizes by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati.
The cash prizes are part of the Kanshi Ram International Sports Award instituted by the Mayawati government.
Apart from giving away prizes worth Rs.1.97 crore to the 16 medallists from UP, Mayawati also hosted a lunch for them at her official residence here.
While praising the winners, she said: “The fact that most of the medallists hailed from small towns and villages shows how much of talent we have at the grassroots level, which is where is need to encourage them.”
“My government will do everything to tap such talent and give the desired assistance to see that they bloom and shine,” she added.
While each of the gold winners in individual events received cheques for Rs.15 lakh, those who were part of a team were given Rs.10 lakh each.
Likewise, those who won silver medal in individual events were given Rs.10 lakh and those who were part of the team received Rs.8 lakh.
Bronze medalists received Rs.8 lakh and team participants Rs.6 lakh each.
Those who were felicitated were: Alka Tomar (wrestling), Anuraj Singh (shooting), N.G. Sonashanu (weight-lifting), Imran Hasan Khan (shooting), Narsingh Yadav (wrestling), Ritul chatterjee (archery), Ashish Kumar (gymnastics), Anuj Kumar Chaudhary (wrestling), Tushar Khakhar (hockey), Sunil Kumar (wrestling), Sudha Singh (atheletics), Danish Mujtaba (hockey), Lokesh Kumar (rowing), Rahul Bajaj (golf), Jasmer Singh (kabbadi) and Rajesh Kumar (rowing).