Pune civic body gives local wrestlers a raw deal

The wrestling competition, organised by the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC), has meted out unfair treatment to the local wrestlers. The civic body has made provisions to give away more award money to the non-Indian participants.

While it has made provisions of Rs26.05 lakh for foreign wrestlers, for Indians, it Rs18.25 lakh for a total of 21 bouts. Out of the 21 bouts, the award money for the first three bouts is more for Indian wrestlers and less for foreign wrestlers.

However, for the rest of the bouts, the award money for Indian players is less compared to foreign wrestlers if they win the bouts.

For bout number eight, if an Indian wrestler wins, he would get Rs1 lakh, but if a foreign wrestler wins then he would get Rs1.25 lakh. Similarly, the Indian player winning the ninth bout would get only Rs40,000 while the foreign wrestler would pocket Rs1.25 lakh.

Even in other bouts, the difference of award money is of Rs45,000, Rs85,000, Rs90,000, Rs1.15 lakh, Rs1 lakh, Rs75,000 and Rs1.05 lakh.

The budget provision of Rs50 lakh meant for road development has been diverted to meet the expenses of the wrestling tournament.

The tournament will start at around 2 pm and end by 5 pm on Friday. When asked, standing committee chairman of the PMC, Baburao Chandere, said, “We had given all the rights of organising and arranging the mayor’s trophy for wrestling to Maharashtra Kustigir Parishad, Pune. So the parishad has decided about the award money.”

But on asking why didn’t the standing committee pay attention towards the discrimination in the award money, Chandere said, \”We did not discuss it as we want to make the event a success.