The Minister for
Youth Affairs & Sports, Jitendra Singh on 3 January 2014
approved criteria
to be kept in view by the Selection Committee for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna
Award, the country’s highest sports award,
the Dronacharya Award and the Dhyan Chand Award. As per the approval, the
government will now grant 90 percent
weightage to medal winners of Olympics, Asian and Commonwealth Games and World
Cup/World Championships held once in four years. This has been done to
bring in more transparency and objectivity for conferring the National Sports
Awards to avoid controversy on giving them.
Earlier, similar criteria with certain
objectives were approved for conferring Arjuna Awards by Jitendra Singh.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports in
January 2014 with the aim of streamlining the procedure for grant of the
National Sports Awards circulated the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to be
followed by various agencies, namely
• The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports
• Sports Authority of India (SAI)
• National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA)
• State Governments, National Sports
Federations (NSFs)
• Sports Promotion and Control Boards
This was done for processing of the cases
related to National Sports Awards that started from inviting nominations to
constitution of Selection Committee.
As per the guidelines, the points for winning
medals will be given to each eligible sportspersons for his/her performance
during last 4 years exception in the case of life-time achievement award. The
Selection Committee will be the decision body in equivalence of any other
sports discipline/tournaments and in accordance the points will be allotted.
Certain games, which are no9t included in
Olympic / Asian Games / Commonwealth Games disciplines, like cricket and
indigenous games, the consideration will be taken by the Selection Committee
depending upon the performances/contribution of the sportspersons/coaches.
In a particular sports discipline, names of
not more than 2 Sportspersons ( 1 male and 1 female) and names of not more than 2 coaches in case
of Dronacharya award with highest marks
as per the criteria stated in the table above will be considered by the selection
committee.
The Selection Committee also reserves the
right for not recommending the name of any deserving sportsperson as per the
given criteria for Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna or Dhyan chand Award. In these
particular cases, the committee will have to justify its stance in writing.
The recommendations of Selection Committee will
be placed before the Union Minister of Youth Affairs & Sports for the final
decision. Journalists/Experts/Commentators have now been included in the
Selection Committees for the sports Awards.