Making the country proud might sometimes not be enough to earn a livelihood and this has been proved by the living examples of the sportspersons of India who succeeded at winning a whole lot of medals for the nation but couldn’t earn a living as the country failed to provide the champions the jobs they were promised.
All athletes winners of various sports activities at the national and international levels were guaranteed by the state government of Jharkhand two years ago regarding a stable job. The promise made by the then Chief Minister Raghubar Das vanished in thin air after the new government came in place. Even after the submission of applications, written tests, immense physical trials, and tests, these athletes remained unemployed as they weren’t given the jobs.
Except for Michael Kindo, AjitLakra, and Nikki Pradhan, the Olympians who fortunately got hired by various agencies, none of the 33 medal owners of Jharkhand were bestowed with employment means.
The Jharkhand athletes say that they were informally offered jobs, yet neither were they provided with any official appointment letter nor were they informed of the location or date of the commencement of their work.
With many stable jobs being robbed from common people by the lockdown, the sportspersons who were already suffering have been forced to resort to other ways to earn bread.
They have started selling vegetables on crates, working at others’ homes as domestic help, pedaling rickshaws, working as daily wage laborers at construction sites, and what not to survive.
As such, they have decided to surrender the medals which took years of practice and rigorous work to be achieved yet couldn’t fetch them a penny as their woes for a job are falling on deaf ears.
Hemant Soren, the current term Chief Minister of Jharkhand, took notice of the grave problems of the athletes and helped some of them. Yet, many still remain elusive of proper work.
The state has given birth to many athletes who won accolades in the field of football, athletics, archery, and hockey. Founder of the Jharkhand Party Jaipal Singh was the captain of the Indian hockey team in the 1928 Amsterdam Olympic Games. This marked the beginning of a new phase of the state where dozens of talented individuals started winning medals.
SylvanusDungdung and ManoharTopno played hockey in the summer Olympic Games. DeepikaKumari represented India in archery.
Sylvanusremains unknown to the public and Topno was dropped out of his role of a referee at a local hockey tournament in Jharkhand amid the pandemic.
The establishment of the Jharkhand Sports Promotion Council and Sports Policy clearly remains useless as the people it was made for are on the streets trying to feed themselves and their families. The BJP government that has ruled the state for 17 years out of the 20 years of its existence failed to prove beneficial or even remotely helpful to the much-deserved individuals and only invoked their hopes with fake promises and announcements.
Veteran hockey Olympian GopalBhengra was bailed out by former cricketer-turned commentator Sunil Gavaskar, but the majority of the athletes are drowning with employment, inching towards poverty.
Archer SoniKhatoon (18) was forced to sell vegetables on the streets of Dhanbad. She had won a medal in the National School Games in 2011 and another in National Archery Competition. Yet, the immensely talented teenager had to stop her education as they dint have enough finances. She couldn’t afford to even mend her broken bow and could replace it only after the CM offered help.
GeetaKumari, another talented daughter of the country who won 8 Gold medals in “walking competitions” in her state along with a bronze in Kolkata’s event, sells vegetables on the Ramgarh road as a vendor. After seeing her plight, she was given a cheque of Rs. 50,000 by the DC of Ramgarh and a monthly stipend.
A news sports policy has been drafted which aims to aid the sportspersons. The CM expressed his plans to formulate a portal where they can enter their information to make a database.
