Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami on Sunday announced that the women's hockey player Vandana Kataria, who participated at the Tokyo Olympics 2020, will be the brand ambassador of the state's Department of Women Empowerment and Child Development.
Earlier, the Uttarakhand Chief Minister had announced a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh to Kataria for her brilliant performance at the Tokyo Olympics.
"The Chief Minister said that the state is proud of Uttarakhand's daughter and Indian women's hockey team player Vandana Kataria's stellar performance at the Tokyo Olympic Games, in recognition of this, she would be given a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh," informed the Chief Minister Office.
"The Chief Minister also said that soon a new and attractive sports policy would be implemented in the state. The new policy would make a provision of proper financial incentives especially for developing international level talent among our youth," the official statement read.
For the unversed, the Indian women's hockey team played their hearts out in the bronze medal match against Great Britain on Friday but they couldn't achieve a podium finish after coming tantalizingly close.
Meanwhile, post the defeat, Vandana Katariya's family in Haridwar was subjected to harassment and casteist slurs were hurled at them. It has been reported that a couple of people engaged in celebrating and bursting crackers at a distance from her house.
Vandana's brother Chandrashekhar Kataria informed the Sidcul police station in-charge about this incident in a written complaint and soon the police detained a person who burst crackers. Sidcul police station SHO Lakhpat Singh Butola confirmed that some people had set off fireworks at a distance from her house, in which a person had been taken into custody while acting on the complaint of Chandrashekhar Kataria.
Later, India women's hockey skipper Rani Rampal condemned casteist slurs hurled at Vandana's family.
"It is such a bad thing. We give it our everything and every player makes so many sacrifices to represent the country. Whatever happened with Vandana's family was a shameful act. I just want to tell people to rise above casteism and stop all these things. We have risen above all this and all our religions are different, we come from different parts of the country but when we play, we play for the Indian flag," Rampal told reporters during a virtual press conference on Saturday organised by Hockey India.
"We sweat it out day in and day out to make the country proud. There are many good people in the country as well, even though we did not win the medal, I have never seen this level of respect from the people. If we want our country to become a sporting powerhouse, everyone has to contribute. Just athletes cannot make it happen so it is a bad thing that happened with Vandana Katariya's family, I hope it is a lesson for everybody that no such thing should happen," she added.
(With ANI inputs)
