Shillong: With India’s shining scorecard at Olympics 2021 and overall achievements of the discipline improving, national enthusiasm around sports of different kinds have gone up and to further contribute to this growing interest, the Meghalaya government felicitated 231 sports achievers at regional, zonal, national and international level competitions 2017-2018 and international level competitions 2017-2018 and launched a cash award scheme at the U Soso Tham Auditorium at State Central Library premises here on Wednesday.
Speaking at the occasion, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma emphasized, “Indian sportspersons have been excelling at international arenas. As we engaged with the youth through the Sports program, we found about 7-8 youths among 300-500 participants who met international standards and were in the ‘Super Elite’ category, despite no professional training, diet, even to the extent of some not even having shoes, running bare feet but proving to be just as efficient. This only shows their immense talent that needs to be recognized, acknowledged, and supported”.
He said that the program was “part of a bigger goa”, and so are the many other programs that will focus on different talents from academics to music and many more.
“By mid-August we would like to distribute the first set of cheques and will continue to be distributed, to provide funds for the youth to allow them to follow their passion and prosper. With a youth-led population in Meghalaya, the State government is aligned to build a strong foundation of guidance, support, and resources which will help bring out more hidden stars who can further contribute to this discipline,” the Chief Minister announced.
The Cash Reward Scheme is aimed at encouraging sportspersons to work harder for greater achievements in the higher-level competitions like the Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, world championships and Olympics.
“We realized that the nurturing of the minds and talents of a child begins early and the government needs to ensure to come up with the right policies and programmes to be able to shape and identify the young minds and talents so that they become successful later in life in the sports or discipline that they have a potential in,” Sangma underscored and added that the government intends to have talents identification in different sectors like music, science and technology.
