New Delhi, Aug 04: Sports Minister Vikram Verma today said that the Arjuna Awards Committee will have to prune the list of awardees in accordance with the existing guidelines and restrict the number to 16. "The government will stick to the guidelines that were formed last year," Verma told the reporters here.
"The recommendations of the committee will reach the ministry only today. We will have to study that, and if the number of cases recommended is more than what the guidelines stipulate, then it will be pruned," he said.
The awards committee, chaired by former footballer P K Banerjee, had recommended 21 names for the Arjuna award and two names for the Rajiv Khel Ratna award last week.
As per the existing guidelines, Arjuna awards honour 15 meritorious performances of the year gone by besides one for the disabled athlete. It also honours one Khel Ratna, for outstanding sporting performance of the year.
The P K Banerjee Committee had recommended shooter Anjali Vedpathak Bhagwat and runner K M Beenamol for the Khel Ratna.
Verma refused to go into how the list of names recommended would be pruned. "Again, there are guidelines to decide on the most deserving athletes," he said.
The minister also said that the pruning would not be done by the government. "The entire task will be done only by the committee which has been formed exactly for that purpose." he added.
Bureau Report