3/6

Para sports, a way of life - The story behind India's para revolution

Across India, para-sport has allowed hundreds of people with disabilities to take control of their lives, giving them economic freedom and respect in a society that generally looks down on the physically-challenged. Central and State governments are also acknowledging their achievements and rewarding them with cash and jobs.

Since 2010, when India hosted the Commonwealth Games, the union sports ministry equaled the cash awards for international medals for both able-bodied and disabled athletes. Many states followed the suit and Haryana was one of them.

In 2018, the sports ministry honored the Jakarta Para Asian Games medalists with cash incentives totaling to Rs 13.55 crore. Apart from that, the medal winners got cash awards of Rs 50 crore plus from their respective state governments. Taking the lead, Haryana only gave Rs 38.25 crore to its 26 medallists.

Tokyo Paralympics

Haryana will be giving cash awards totaling to Rs 22.5 crore to Tokyo Paralympics medallists hailing from the state – Sumit Antil Rs 6 crore (He already got the cash award for his gold medal), Manish Narwal will get Rs Rs 6 crore for gold, Singhraj Adhana will get Rs 6.5 crore for a silver and a bronze, while Yogesh Kathuniya will get Rs 4 crore for the silver medal.

Rajasthan distributed Rs 10 crore to four of its’ Tokyo Paralympics medalists – Avina Lekhra, Rs 4 crore for gold and a bronze medal; Krishna Nagar, Rs 3 crore for gold; Devendra Jhajharia, Rs 2 crore for silver, while Sundar Gurjar got Rs 1 crore for bronze – and Odisha handed over a cheque of Rs 6 crore to para badminton Tokyo Games gold medalist Pramod Bhagat.

Apart from the cash award from their respective state governments, the 19 Paralympics medalists will be getting a cash award of Rs 75 lakh for gold, Rs 50 lakh for silver and Rs 30 lakh for bronze.