Following badminton ace player P.V. Sindhu’s phenomenal victory, clenching the bronze medal, at the Tokyo Olympics 2020, the Andhra Pradesh government declared a cash prize of Rs 30 lakh to her in appreciation of her feat.
The announcement was made late on Monday night by the state Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy. The incentive comes as part of the sports policy followed by Andhra Pradesh. Under this, athletes winning gold medals get Rs 75 lakh, silver medals get Rs 50 lakh while bronze, the one Sindhu won, gets offered Rs 30 lakhs as an acknowledgment of their win for the state.
Before commencing their journey for the Olympics this year to Tokyo, the Chief Minister gave cash incentives to all the 3 sportspersons belonging to AP, including PV Sindhu, R Satwiksairaj, and Rajani Etimarpu, a member of the women’s hockey team.
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Apart from this, Mr Reddy had also sanctioned a 2-acre land to Sindhu in port city Visakhapatnam for setting up a badminton academy to promote and encourage the sport in the state.
Reacting to Sindhu’s victory, the CM had congratulated the sports player earlier with a tweet saying, “All good wishes and much Congratulations to our Telugu girl @PvSindhu1 for winning Bronze for India at #TokyoOlympics2020. She is the 1st Indian woman to have won two individual medals at #Olympics.”
Sindhu played against Bing Jao in the 52-minute long match to battle for the bronze medal. She won the game with 21-13, 21-15.
A former Bharat Petroleum employee, she is now working with the Andhra Pradesh government. Since July 2013, Sindhu worked as an assistant sports manager in the Hyderabad office and was promoted to a deputy sports manager post after her silver medal at Rio Olympics. However, in July 2017, she was given the position of Deputy Collector by the then Chandrababu Naidu government, a charge she took up in August.
However, her silver medal had fetched her bigger rewards back in 2016 when the Telangana government had issued her an incentive of Rs 5 crore while the AP government gave Rs 3 crore and a government job.
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With this win, Sindhu becomes the only woman in the country and the second Indian to bring 2 individual Olympic medals home. Earlier, wrestler Sushil Kumar had attained this feat, becoming the first Indian to do so with a bronze medal at Beijing Olympics 2008 and a silver at 2012’s London Olympics.
