MUMBAI: The Cricket Board on Saturday decided to reward shooter Abhinav Bindra, the country's first-ever individual gold medallist in Olympic Games, and bronze medal winners -- grappler Sushil Kumar and pugilist Vijender Kumar -- with cash prizes totalling Rs 45 lakh.
Bindra, who won the 10-metre air rifle gold on August 11 to provide the medal-starved nation its first yellow metal in 108 years of the modern Games, would be given Rs 25 lakh while wrestler Sushil Kumar (bronze in 66 kg freestyle) and boxer Vijender Kumar (bronze in 75 kg class) would get Rs 10 lakh each.
The decision to reward the Indian Olympics medallists in the Beijing Games, which is set to close tomorrow, was taken at the BCCI's Working Committee meeting here chaired by its president Sharad Pawar.
The all-powerful Working Committee also decided that the cash-rich Board, which has set up a National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) with a corpus of Rs 50 crore, will double its contribution to the Fund from Rs 25 crore to Rs 50 crore for the next three years.
Among other important decisions taken at the one-day sitting was the amount of remuneration for the members of the men's senior and junior selection committees as well as the women's selection committee.
The men's senior selectors would get an honorarium of Rs 25 lakh per annum, the junior selectors Rs 15 lakh and the women selectors Rs 5 lakh.
The Committee also laid down norms for the selectors and one of the regulations that will be enforced in future is that no member of the selection panels should be office bearers of the BCCI or its affiliated units.
At present senior selection panel chief Dilip Vengsarkar and his co-selectors Sanjay Jagdale and Ranjib Biswal all hold posts in their respective cricket associations affiliated to the Board.
The senior selection panel member should also have retired from the game at least ten years ago and should either have played for the country or turned out in more than 25 first class matches.
The period after retiring from the game to become a junior selector or member of women's panel has been set at five years while he or she should meet the other criteria fixed for senior selectors.
On the lines of the monthly gratis scheme for male cricketers, a similar scheme for women was approved by the committee by which those who had played 10 or more Tests would get Rs 15,000 per month and those who had turned out in five to nine Tests would receive Rs 10,000.
The Committee also decided to extend the monthly gratis scheme to the widows of Test umpires, as is being done in the case of widows of deceased Test cricketers.
It was also decided to send a woman cricket coach to China as part of BCCI's mission to promote and develop women's cricket there.
The donation of cricket equipment worth USD 50,000 (approx. Rs 21.5 lakh) to that country has already been finalised and the Indian High Commissioner to China will present it next month to the Cricket Association of China on behalf of the BCCI.
For enabling promising cricketers belonging to the north eastern states in fine tuning their skills, the Board would set up a cricket academy in Kolkata by purchasing land.
The Committee also approved the BCCI's Annual Report and Accounts for the year 2007-08.
