Chandigarh, December 1: Six players and one coach from Haryana have been honoured with the National Sports Award 2022. Athlete Seema Punia (Sonipat), boxer Amit Panghal (Rohtak), Kabaddi player Sakshi (Sonipat), wrestlers Anshu Malik (Jind) and Sarita Mor (Sonipat) and badminton para-player Tarun Dhillon (Hisar) were awarded with the Arjuna Award, while wrestling coach Sh. Raj Singh (Sonipat) was honoured with the Dronacharya Award in the Lifetime category.

Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal congratulated the sportspersons for being honoured with the National Sports awards. He said that the players of the sports capital Haryana, perform brilliantly and bring laurels in various national and international level competitions; resulting to win maximum medals for the state.

Sh. Manohar Lal said that Haryana has consistently remained at number one spot in sports. “Haryana is the first state in the country, which gives maximum cash prize money to medal winning sportspersons. The government has made a provision of Rs 6 crore for gold medalist, Rs 4 crore for silver medalist and Rs 2.5 crore for bronze medalist in Olympic Games. Haryana is ahead of many countries in terms of reward for medal winners,” he asserted. He said that Haryana's sports policy has been appreciated not only in the country but also abroad for giving maximum prize money to the players, adding that the other states had also visited here to follow the sports policy of Haryana.

Notably, Haryana's role is important in all the sports tournaments held in the past years, be it Asian Games, Commonwealth or Olympics. Under the able leadership of Chief Minister, Sh. Manohar Lal, the Haryana government is also providing excellent facilities to the sportspersons. Haryana is the first state in the country, which has made an arrangement to give an advance amount of Rs 5 lakh to the players for preparation; as soon as they qualify for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, as the government is committed to promote sports continuously.