Punjab Sports Minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi on Friday honoured 90 players, who brought laurels for the state and country in the year 2017-18, with prizes worth around Rs 1.66 crore.

Addressing the special award ceremony, Rana Sodhi said these 90 players, who have outshined at international, national and state level during the year 2017-18, are being given Rs 1,65,65,700. Out of these, 36 international players have been given around Rs 1.26 crore, while 54 national level sports persons with prize money of around Rs 39.39 lakh. He said the sports department has decided to provide cash awards worth Rs 4.85 crores to decorated players, out of which, around Rs 1.66 crores was disbursed on Friday.

Presenting a cheque of Rs 5 lakh on behalf of the Punjab Government to pugilist Simranjit Kaur, who is the first boxer from the State to qualify for Olympics, Rana Sodhi said that Simranjit is also the first boxer from Punjab, who bagged Silver in the Asia-Oceania qualifying tournament and secured a place in the Olympics.

He said the Punjab Government would bear the expenses of Simranjit Kaur’s preparation for the Olympics.

To give a boost to the players for the Olympics, the minister said Gold winners at the Olympics would get Rs 2.25 crore prize money, Silver winners Rs 1.5 crore, while those bagging Bronze would get Rs 1 crore along with government jobs.

Expressing grief over the death of Special Olympian Rajvir Singh (21) of Siarh village of district Ludhiana, who had won two gold medals in cycling at the 2015 Special Olympics in Los Angeles, Rana Sodhi announced financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to the next family members of the deceased Olympic athlete. He said that senior officials of the department have been asked to hand over the cheque of financial assistance