The State government is providing scholarships to 3,900 budding sports persons under the Mukyamantri Udiyaman Khiladi Unnayan Yojana. The government has also decided to reintroduce sports quota in government jobs. Chief minister Pushkar Singh Dhami stated this on Friday in an event organised by the Sports department at the new multipurpose sports building in Parade Ground, Dehradun.

He also felicitated 168 national level players and 42 coaches who won medals in the year 2021 and 2022 by distributing a total cash prize of Rs 2.08 crore among them. Besides this, Dhami also presented the Uttarakhand Khel Ratna award to Badminton player Lakshya Sen and athlete Chandan Singh for the year 2019-20 and 2020-21 respectively.

The CM also awarded Devbhoomi Uttarakhand Dronacharya Award for 2019-20 to badminton coach Dhirendra Kumar Sen, taekwondo coach Kamlesh Kumar Tiwari and archery coach Sandeep Kumar Duklan for 2021-22. Athlete Suresh Chandra Pandey was also presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award for his remarkable contribution in the field of sports. Dhami said on the occasion that young players of Uttarakhand are bringing laurels to the state by participating and winning in national and international competitions. 

He said that in the new sports policy, the government has made efforts to provide all possible facilities to the players. He said that a target has been set to make Uttarakhand the leading state of the country by 2025 and everybody will have to do their best in their respective field of work. The Sports minister Rekha Arya also said that the government has also included traditional sports in the new sports policy to promote them among youths. She said that the department is also making all preparations to successfully host the 38th National Games in 2024.