Lucknow, August 19: Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath felicitated Olympians who have done the country proud at the recent Tokyo Olympics, at a function here on Thursday.
During a mega event at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium, chief minister Yogi Adityanath gave monetary rewards to the Olympians.
During the programme, gold medal winner (javelin) Neeraj Chopra received Rs 2 crore, silver medallists Ravi Dahiya and Mirbai Chanu received Rs 1.5 crore each.
Similarly, the three individual bronze medallists - P.V. Sindhu, Lovlina Borgohain and Bajrang Punia - were awarded Rs 1 crore each.
Besides, all 19 members of the Indian hockey team were given Rs 1 crore each.
Members of the women's hockey team, who performed exceptionally well but finished fourth, were given Rs 50 lakh each and so was the golfer, Aditi Ashok, who narrowly missed the bronze.
All 10 players from UP who participated in the Olympics were handed Rs 25 lakh each.
Varanasi hockey player Lalit Upadhyay went back home Rs 1.25 crore richer while Head coach of the hockey team, Graham Reid, received Rs 25 lakh.
The government spent around Rs 42 crore to not only felicitate the medal winners but also those who finished fourth.
During the mega event, CM Adityanath lauded India's best-ever show at an Olympic event and praised the athletes for delivering their best for the country despite the pandemic.
"On behalf of all of you, I would congratulate all the athletes who represented the nation at Tokyo 2020. All these athletes gave their best performance for the country despite the covid pandemic. It shows that every athlete plays for the entire and they do not see anything else apart from country," Adityanath said during the event.
Tokyo 2020 was India's best-ever show at the quadrennial event as India returned with seven medals. Lauding India's historic show, Adityanath added, "We are glad that our team produced their best-ever show at 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 18 disciplines, India won 7 medals and 10 athletes from UP also participated at Tokyo Olympics 2020."
According to reports, Yogi Adityanath raised the grant of Rs 5 lakhs for international sporting events to Rs 25 lakhs. On similar lines, the grant for Asian Championship was raised from Rs 3 Lakhs to Rs 15 Lakhs.
Additional chief secretary, home, Avanish Awasthi said, "It is the vision of the chief minister that all the Tokyo Olympic achievers are being felicitated here."
Sports minister Upendra Tiwari said, "Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been promoting sports through 'Khelo India Khelo' and 'Fit India Movement'. The Uttar Pradesh government is making efforts to ensure that in future, India emerges with flying colours in sports events at the international level and majority of medal winners are from UP."
