When India’s teenage shooting sensation Manu Bhaker reminded Haryana Sports Minister Anil Vij about the Rs 2 crore cash award for her Youth Olympics gold medal through her twitter account, the minister responded by choosing the very same medium to reprimand the 16-year-old saying she should feel sorry for creating controversy.

This followed a series of tweets from the shooter’s official handle tagging Union Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore and Prime Minister Narendra Modi among others which gave away the real reason for the outburst.

The Haryana Minister had announced a cash prize of Rs 2 crore for Bhaker on October 10, 2018, saying the government would increase the amount from Rs 10 lakh provision during the earlier Congress-led government. While the amount was revised, the Government Resolution passed on December 27 put the amount at Rs 1 crore and not Rs 2 crore as announced by the minister.

It is quite possible that the ministry officials and even the Revenue department would have studied the impact of the rise in prize money and the funds available before arriving at the amount. Understandably, the player and her family were clearly not amused with the possible loss of Rs 1 crore.

This also explained the swipe she later took at Sports Department’s Principal Secretary Ashok Khemka in a later tweet.

Haryana has been giving huge amounts as prize money to medallists in major multi-discipline events and players of many other states have been critical of their state governments’ policies as they have not matched up to the North Indian state, especially after this year’s Commonwealth and Asian Games success.

It ultimately resulted in states like Delhi, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and even Karnataka announcing enhanced prize money but the disparity in cash prizes across states remained and a bronze medallist in Haryana (in some cases) became a lot more richer than gold medallist from states like Bengal and Telangana.

Also read: Which state paid how much money to Asian Games medallists

But more than the growing disparity in prize money across the states, the bigger problem is the game of one-upmanship that politicians are playing.

It started with Chandrababu Naidu promising cash awards for athletes for success in the National Games held on home turf in 2002. Many athletes, even from Haryana, turned up for Andhra Pradesh that year for the cash rewards forcing their home state to adopt a similar policy under the Bhupinder Singh Hooda government.

While the change in government in Andhra Pradesh also resulted in the end of the instant reward policy, Haryana kept raising the stakes with every multi-discipline Games and have probably a huge role in creating the monster.

The Maharashtra government also jumped on the bandwagon after the 2016 Rio Olympics when Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis announced a cash reward of Rs 75 lakh for PV Sindhu for her silver medal and ended up giving hefty amount to those from the state who participated in the Games without any clearly defined policy.

The money had to be arranged from other sources even when the state government had not paid amounts ranging from Rs 50,000-Rs 1,00,000 to athletes winning medals at the National Games in 2011 and 2015.

In the two years between the Rio Olympics to the 2018 Asian Games, most states have officially raised the prize money to be given medalists of multi-discipline events. Despite that, Vij and other ministers have been guilty of playing to the galleries by announcing additional prize money without consulting the officials or the government exchequer.

Players misusing provisions

Athletes have started believing that big prize money after winning medals even in South Asian Games or some disciplines in Commonwealth Games is their birthright and even the big names are participating in these events for the prize money, killing the opportunity for the second rung to get much-needed exposure.

Then, there is the case of Harmeet Desai, who cried foul over the government paying him only Rs 33 lakh for winning the team gold in the Commonwealth Games when the provision was for Rs 1 crore. The government had paid him one fourth of the prize money as the gold was in team events which had four players representing the country.

Desai’s contention was other states were paying their players full money and hence he also deserved the same, without even mentioning the fact that the state government had been spending an almost similar amount on his training and exposure for the past three years.

Interestingly Maharashtra, which paid Rs 50 lakh for gold, Rs 30 for silver and Rs 20 for bronze winners in the Asian Games and Commonwealth Games, decided to leave the Bridge players out of the prize money ambit, under the pretext that the sport isn’t recognised by them, when they realised that it would cost them almost Rs 1.4 crore if the seven members of the bronze medal winning team were to be rewarded.

The way some players have misused the provision of awarding their personal coaches just goes on to show that the system needs to be much more efficient.

Rio Paralympics silver medallist Deepa Malik sent her husband’s name as coach for the cash reward from the Union Sports Ministry but when it was rejected on the grounds of him being just an escort and not a coach, she ended up sending two different names to the Central and state government.

A similar controversy came to light in Tamil Nadu when squash stars Dipika Pallikal and Sourav Ghosal gave names of coaches which the federation refused to endorse.

In Maharashtra, the state government officials and even sportspersons have been talking in hushed tones about how rower Dattu Bhokanal named his fiancee Ashwini Borhade, who is a former wrestler, as coach to get the additional money.

While Bhoknal has remained tight-lipped over the issue, government officials say they can’t take any action because no one from the Federation has officially objected to the nomination by the rower.

Mind you, Bhoknal, Malik and the squash players are not the only ones who are guilty of such malpractices. Stories of players giving their family members names as coaches for cash awards are commonplace.

But the bigger question is the direction in which such announcements are leading Indian sports and sportspersons.

The coaches of the Indian junior shooting contingent had flagged the issue soon after the Asian Games. Jaspal Rana and Mansher Singh spoke about the need to protect the young players from the lure of money and petty politics.

“Obviously, they don’t know what to do with that kind of money and their parents, too, start getting influenced from outside factors, especially who have a humble background. Let these fearless innocent kids remain that way.

“In India, for political reasons, different states announce big prize money when these kids win medals. They should get all the money but not all in one go.”

“If they are giving a cash prize of Rs 1 crore, the government should break that into a monthly amount and give it over a period of time. That way they will remain motivated. It will make them work harder.”

— — Mansher Singh

While no one can begrudge the players becoming financially secure after a successful campaign in major competitions, it is difficult to comprehend the politics of cash awards considering that many of these state associations hardly provide the support required by the athletes.

The primary concern of the state governments should be to spend money on the development of sports and training of these sportspersons and the cash rewards have to be proportionate.

And if any politician wants to seek publicity by making grandiose announcements, he or she should be prepared to shell the money out of their own pockets rather than create a situation such as the one that the Haryana government and Manu Bhaker find themselves in.