People are people, and they respond to incentives. They can nearly always be manipulated — for good or ill — if only you find the right levers — Levitt & Dubner
Motivation comes in many forms. Some are driven to success by the sense of pride it brings in. Some are inspired to excel by the fame that is likely to follow. Several path-breakers have stayed too focused on the job to even think about the fringe-benefits due to their success.
Generally, for an aspiring sportsperson in India, one more source of incentive matters much. That is, performance-related cash awards from the Central government, State government or even employers.
In multi-discipline games — Olympics, Asian and Commonwealth — India is usually far from the front-runners.
For a country where sports is not a priority due to more compelling socio-economic reasons, cash rewards do play their part in bringing out the best from the sportspersons particularly in these games.
After all, majority of these performers are not professionals.
Therefore, cash incentive has a bearing on their future.
As per the Government’s policy, every medal winner of the multi-discipline games is entitled to financial reward under the Special Cash Award scheme. For the Olympics, the rewards are Rs. 50 lakh for an individual gold medal, Rs. 30 lakh for silver and Rs. 20 lakh for bronze.
For the Asian and Commonwealth Games, the amounts are correspondingly reduced to Rs. 20 lakh, Rs. 10 lakh and Rs. six lakh. Surprisingly, for the World championships in the disciplines included in multi-discipline games, the share is further reduced to Rs. 10 lakh, Rs. five lakh and Rs. three lakh.
This is where some of the states, like Haryana, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh stand out among those offering handsome cash incentives to medal winners belonging to their states.
Path-breakerIn fact, Haryana remains the path-breaker. Last month, Gujarat matched Haryana’s offer and promises to do more for sports.
Significantly, these states have announced cash rewards that are 10 times the amount offered by the Central Government. Consider this.
An Olympic gold medallist from Haryana and Gujarat will receive Rs. five crore, a silver medallist Rs. three crore and the bronze medallist Rs. two crore each from their respective states.
Even for the Asian Games, these states have announced whopping amounts. Last month, Haryana raised the Asian Games gold winner’s reward from Rs. 25 lakh to two crore, silver medallist’s share from Rs. 15 lakh to Rs. one crore and for those claiming the bronze, the amount was hiked from Rs. 10 lakh to Rs. 50 lakh.
In fact, precisely a week following this announcement, Gujarat offered identical rewards for its prospective medal winners.
Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh also offer impressive cash awards for their medal winners from multi-discipline games.
Recently, Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa received Rs. 50 lakh each from the Tamil Nadu government for winning the doubles gold in squash in the Commonwealth Games. For the table tennis men’s doubles silver medallists Sharath Kamal and Anthony Amalraj, too, their effort was worth Rs. 30 lakh each.
Similarly, in Hyderabad, medal winners like P. Kashyap, R.V.M Gurusaidutt, G. Jwala and Gagan Narang received hefty cash awards from their state.
In fact, over a period of time, cash awards from the state for Narang have surpassed the Rs. 2 crore mark.
Unfortunately, Saina is still awaiting her promised share from the State for claiming the Olympic bronze.
If Haryana stands out for its generosity in honouring sportspersons, it is because the present Chief Minister goes beyond the stated rules.
For instance, after the Indian contingent returned with six medals from the 2012 London Olympics, Bhupinder Singh Hooda announced plots for Delhi-based Sushil Kumar, Hyderabad-based Saina and Narang, in addition to the ones offered to Haryana-mates Yogeshwar Dutt and Vijender Singh.
Each of the medal winners was also gifted a luxury car. Cash awards were also announced for 15 others in the Olympic squad from Haryana.
These initiatives do add up in motivating the present and future generation of performers to train harder, to achieve greater heights.
