Punjab Sports minister offers prizes to Punjab players returning from Tokyo

Chandigarh, Aug 10 (UNI) Punjab Sports and Youth Services Minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi on Tuesday informed that the state government will honor Olympics medal winners and participating state players besides Gold-medallist Javeline Thrower Neeraj Chopra with the cash awards worth Rs 15.10 crore in a special function to be held here on August 12.
In a communiqué, Rana Sodhi said that Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh will honour the Olympic players, while Governor V P Singh Badnaur would be the special guest on this occasion. He said that as per the special announcement of the Chief Minister, gold medal-winner Neeraj Chopra, who has deep roots with Punjab, would be honored with an amount of Rs 2 crore.
The Minister said that 11 state players, who were part of the Indian hockey team which brought laurels in Olympics by winning a medal (bronze) after 41 years of drought, would be honoured with Rs 1 crore each.
Notably, Indian hockey team led by Captain Manpreet Singh and Vice-Captain Harmanpreet Singh. Apart from them, Rupinder Pal Singh, Simranjit Singh, Mandeep Singh, Gurjant Singh, Shamsher Singh, Varun Kumar, Dilpreet Singh, Hardik Singh and Krishan Pathak were also from Punjab.
Fourth positioned Indian women hockey team members from state Reena Khokhar and Gurjit Kaur and Discus Thrower Kamalpreet Kaur, who remained on 6th position also amongst to be honoured with cash prize of Rs. 50 lakhs each.
Similarly, Boxer Simranjit Kaur, Shooter Anjum Moudgill and Angadveer Singh, athletes Tejinder Pal Singh Toor and Gurpreet Singh and Paralympic Badminton player Palak Kohli, would also be given Rs 10 lakh each.