Home ministry desires Khel Ratna, Arjuna to be rationalised to kind one award
In a bid to ‘streamline and transform the ecosystem of all awards’, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has advisable that India’s two highest sporting honours, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards, ‘may be rationalised to form a single national award’.
The sports activities ministry, in its reply, mentioned they ‘may agree’ with the MHA’s suggestion however a spokesperson mentioned that this 12 months, the awards might be conferred as per the prevailing format.
The MHA – in two separate letters to the sports activities ministry in July and September final 12 months, which have been inspected by The Indian Express below the Right to Information (RTI) Act – wrote: “Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards may be rationalised to form a single National Award for sportspersons having two categories.” It added: “Awards given over the years have been much more than the number prescribed in the guidelines.”
The MHA additionally famous the rise within the variety of awardees for the Dronacharya and Dhyanchand classes.
As per the federal government pointers, there must be a complete of 32 awardees throughout the six awards classes, with a number of exceptions allowed in every. Last 12 months, nonetheless, the awards have been conferred on an unprecedented 74 recipients.
Rohit Sharma, Manika Batra, Vinesh Phogat, Mariyappan Thangavelu, Rani Rampal have been awarded Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award in August 2020.
The sports activities ministry replied that the quantity was elevated to ‘encourage’ athletes for the postponed Tokyo Olympics, which might be held from July 23 to August 8 this 12 months. “The increase in the number of awardees is due to the better performance of the sportspersons in the Commonwealth Games 2018, Asian Games 2018 and to encourage the sportspersons for the upcoming Olympic Games 2020,” it wrote.
The sports activities ministry added: “We may agree with the suggestion given by MHA that both these awards may be rationalised to form a single National Award for sportspersons having two categories.” It additional mentioned {that a} ‘new award for sports teams is being considered.’
When requested for the main points concerning the proposed merger of the 2 awards, the sports activities ministry didn’t supply any remark. “In 2021, the framework of the National Sports Awards will be similar to that of 2020,” it mentioned in an announcement.
However, these within the know mentioned that the sports activities ministry has initiated the method of modifying the prevailing pointers in order to ‘clearly demarcate the difference between the Khel Ratna and Arjuna Awards’. One of the parameters being thought-about for Khel Ratna is that the applicant ought to have already received the Arjuna Award, on condition that the previous is a better honour. “There was a blurring of the lines, which is now getting sorted,” a supply mentioned.
Apart from ‘rationalising and optimisation of the number of awards and their categories’, the MHA additionally urged the creation of a ‘small dedicated award cell’ and an enchancment in ‘design, look, feel of each award, medal, decoration, certificate, token, etc’.
The dwelling ministry additionally advisable that the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar and Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Trophy be merged into one award. But the sports activities ministry mentioned they ‘may not agree’ with this advice.