Over the last few days, we have been reading how Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik took a lead in building both men's and women's hockey teams and had so far spent around Rs 150 crore on the development of the sport. 

Patnaik has earned accolades for his measures that resulted in the Indian men's hockey team winning bronze at the Tokyo Olympics and the women's team reaching the semi-finals and losing bronze narrowly to Great Britain.

But the question is why only Odisha and what about other states, especially Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Delhi. Some of these states contribute significantly to the Indian economy but are not forthcoming when it comes to promoting sports.

Haryana is doing its bit in terms of giving cash rewards, jobs and promotions to the medallists of all international events.

It is good we celebrate the achievements of our players by doling out cash prizes but that needs to be followed up with a concrete plan to promote sports in the country.

We may have won one gold (thanks to golden boy Neeraj Chopra), two silver (Saikhom Mirabai Chanu and Ravi Kumar Dahiya) and four bronze medals (Men's hockey team, Bajrang Punia, Lovlina Borgohain and PV Sindhu) in Olympics, but we stand at number 48 in the overall medals tally with many small countries ahead of us.

Remember, India is the fastest growing big economy and the world's most populous country after China that came second at the Tokyo Olympics with 88 medals, including 38 gold. See the comparison now, India has won a total of 33 medals in all the editions of Olympics held so far.

Where are we lagging? Infrastructure building has been one of the areas where India lags behind other countries. Successive governments have failed in developing world class sports infrastructure in the country, which has badly impacted the performance of Indian athletes in the international arena.

While there may be some noise around the Olympics medal haul for some time with felicitation functions and distribution of cash awards, what remains to be seen is whether this hype will be translated into some concrete action plan.