10 March, Kathmandu. According to the National Council of Sports (Rachep), the pre-announced cash prize to be given to the gold winners of the 9th National Games has been delayed due to the postponement of the budget without coordination by the Ministry of Finance.
In the 9th National Games held from October 28 to October 3 in Gandaki province, the Rakhep Board decided to award Rs 25,000 to individual gold winners and Rs 15,000 to team gold winners.
397 gold medals were contested in the 9th National Games. One crore 56 lakh 40 thousand is required for 304 individual games and 536 team players. However, member secretary Tanklal Ghising admitted that there was some delay in disbursement of prize money to the players as the Finance Ministry froze Rakhep’s account without informing them.
Due to the suspension of Rakhep’s account, not only the awards of the sportspersons but also the monthly allowance received by Olympians and Asian Games medal winners and gold winners of South Asian Games (SAG) have been stopped for two months. The government is giving a monthly allowance of Rs 4,000 to Olympians and Rs 6,000 to Asiad medalists and SAG gold holders.
On Wednesday, National and International Athletes Association, Olympian Association and others met the member secretary and drew attention to the delay in award to national sports gold medal winners and allowance to international medal winners.
“We came to know later that the account was blocked by the Finance Ministry. Now after much discussion with the officials of the Sports Ministry and Finance Ministry, they have agreed to release him. However, it did not work,” said Gheesing, Member Secretary, Rakhap requested the award winning players to be patient for a few days.
With the selection of the gold winner, Rakhep decides to deposit the prize money in the bank accounts of all the players. Member secretary Gheesing said the process of collecting the details of the players’ bank accounts and forcibly opening accounts for those who did not have accounts took weeks.
They complained that the banks were also slow in sending accounts for verification to 16 banks containing 840 players. On January 20, Rakhep had requested the Treasury and Accounts Controller’s Office to distribute an amount of Rs 36 lakh 20 thousand to the 38 players who won gold medals, whose accounts are in Krishi Vikas Bank and 145 whose accounts are in National Commercial Bank. .
‘The same day we came to know that Rakhep’s account has been frozen,’ says member secretary Gheesing, ‘It was not our intention to freeze the prize money of the player. There has been some delay in going through the Lambaton process.
Member Secretary Ghising told that after receiving complaints of scams in the prize money of the players in the past years, it was decided to put it directly in the bank account of the players from this year.
Of the 6,127 athletes who participated in the 9th National Games, 840 won gold medals in individual and group events.
Rakhep also decided to award Rs 50,000 to the national record holders. The award of the national record has now been put on hold due to a controversy over the distance of the pool in swimming.