Udhayanidhi Stalin distributes Rs 13.98 crore to 589 athletes from Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: State sports minister Udhayanidhi Stalin on Tuesday distributed cash incentives worth Rs 13.98 crore to 589 sportspersons from the state who won in international and national level events.

Udhayanidhi distributed cheques to individual state sportspersons, including Chess players who won international master, women grandmaster titles and athletes who competed in All India Inter-University Games and national level events.

Taking pride in the state sending second most number (17 including six disabled sportspersons) of athletes to the Paris Olympics after Punjab and Haryana, the state sports minister said that the state sports department disbursed Rs 1.19 crore at the rate of Rs 7 lakh each to the 17 athletes participating in the Olympics as per the order of Chief Minister M K Stalin.

Remarking that he has come as an elder brother to disburse the high cash incentives to the sportspersons, Udhayanidhi advised the sportsperson to march towards their target by deriving inspiration from bronze-winning women Olympian shooter Manu Bhaker who trained hard for three years and converted the tears she shed during Tokyo Olympics into glory by securing victory in the 10m individual air pistol shooting in Paris.

Exuding confidence that the sportsperson gathered to receive the high cash incentive would also make the state and country proud by winning medals one day, the sports ministers cited how Indian women’s football captain Indumathi braved so many odds in her life to become the captain of the women’s national team.

Additional Chief Secretary of Sports Department Atulya Mishra and member secretary of Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu Meghnath Reddy and fencing ace Bhavani Devi were also present during the function held at Nehru Indoor Stadium.