Amaravati: After ace shuttler, PV Sindhu's scintillating show at the Tokyo Olympics ended with a Bronze medal and becoming the only female athlete to win two Olympic medals, the Andhra Pradesh government announced a cash incentive of Rs 30 lakh to the star, for her tremendous contribution to sports and bringing pride to the nation. Earlier, PM Modi also hailed her heroics at the showpiece event and called her India's pride.
Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy directed officials to extend the cash award late on Monday night as part of the state sports policy. The policy offers a cash reward of Rs 75 lakh to gold medal winners, Rs 50 lakh for the silver medal and Rs 30 lakh for the bronze medal. The Chief Minister had given a cash incentive of Rs 5 lakh to each of the three sportspersons, Sindhu, R. Satwiksairaj, and women's hockey player Rajani Etimarpu before they left for the Japanese capital.
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During that time, the Chief Minister also gave a copy of the government order allocating two-acre land to Sindhu to set up a badminton academy in the port city Visakhapatnam. Sindhu is an employee of the Andhra Pradesh government. After her Rio Olympics exploits in 2016, former AP Chief Minister Nara Chandrababu Naidu gave her the job of a deputy collector.
Coming to the cash incentive, Rs 30 lakh doled out now by the current AP government pales in comparison to the cash incentives she received after winning a silver medal in the 2016 Olympics.
Back then, the Telangana government handed out an incentive of Rs 5 crore to Sindhu while the AP government gave Rs 3 crore and a plum government job as well.
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