Sukhbir Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister and Sports Minister Punjab today reiterated his resolve to include mother sport of Punjab, Kabaddi in Olympic curriculum inviting cooperation from neighboring nations for accelerating the move in this regard.Badal, whose brainchild of hosting Kabaddi World Cup has got popularity across the globe including African, Australian and Latin American Continent, gave his green signal to honour the winning India Kabbadi team with prize money of Rs. 2.00 crore, Rs. 1.00 crore and Rs. 51.00 lac for the winners, runners up and third position holder team respectively. Pertinently Indian Men and women teams have emerged victorious.
Deputy CM said his move of mooting proposal for inclusion of Kabaddi in Commonwealth and Olympics would definitely show results in the coming years. He said he would invite the special attention of neighboring nations, where this traditional sport has extraordinary passion amongst people to expedite the efforts in this regard so this mission could be achieved at the earliest.
Badal said that East Punjab and West Punjab were also contemplating to host the next edition of World Cup Kabaddi in both the nations, in which half of the matches would be played in Punjab and the rest of the matches would be played in Pakistan. He said that Pakistan has already given its nod in this regard to make this event more passionate and entertaining.It is pertinent to mention here that on the directions of Sports Minister, the Sports Department today organized a felicitation function here to give away the prize money and awards to the winner Indian Kabaddi Team for 4th edition of World Kabaddi Cup. Mr. Kahan Singh Pannu, Secretary Sports & Youth Services gave away the prizes at a special interact session convened at Chandigarh attended by Mr. Tejinder Singh Dhaliwal, Director Sports, Punjab, officials of the Sports Department, Mr. Shivdev Singh, Director Tournament and Mr. Gurdeep Singh Malhi, General Secretary, Punjab Kabaddi Association.
Pannu informed that there was Prize Money of Rs. 2.00 crore for the winners, Rs. 1.00 crore for the runners up and Rs. 51.00 lac for the third position holder team. Each player of the men Indian team was given a prize money of Rs. 13,57,143. Similarly Each member of the Indian women team was also given an amount of Rs. 6,78,571 each.Mr. Harprit Singh Baba Coach and Mr. Gurdeep Singh Malhi Manager of the Indian Men team were also given cash prize of Rs. 5.00 lac each. Similarly coach and manager of Indian women team Palwinder Kaur and Paramajit Kaur were also handed over an amount of Rs. 2.50 lac each.The Sports Department and Youth Services congratulated the winning team and wished them good luck and successful future. Mr. Pannu said that Punjab was giving special emphasis to the traditional games of the state. Besides, giving jobs to the players, the state was making concerted efforts to create sports culture in the state by providing sports facilities to its youth.