UPTTA announces financial help for its associates
LUCKNOW: The Uttar Pradesh Table Tennis Association (UPTTA) on Monday announced financial help for all its associates, including players, coaches, umpires and district secretaries, amid the pandemic. All concerned need to contact the UPTTA authority immediately, the association said. “Due to the pandemic if any player/coaches/umpires/district secretary is in deep financial crisis, they are free to contact me. UPTTA will always (be) ready to help you in your hard time,” UPTTA secretary Arun Banerjee stated in a WhatsApp message. “It’s really a bad time for everyone, including those who are associated with the game in the state, and it’s the responsibility of UPTTA to extend support to the needy ones,” said Banerjee. “If someone needs, UPTTA will give Rs 20,000 help to an individual. We, all the members, have also decided to contribute funds for the help from our pockets,” he added. UPTTA had donated Rs 3.51 lakh to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund recently. “Certainly, there are many, including the district secretaries, who have been facing a financial crisis. In this situation, UPTTA’s offer is really a great help to them,” said one of the district secretaries, who asked not to be named. “In fact, the struggle of 400 plus ad hoc coaches across the state, including a Laxman awardee who tried to sell his award, woke me up,” said Banerjee, adding, “The financial support would also be given to 4-5 table tennis coaches, who are working on an ad hoc basis across the state.”
AWARD CEREMONY
UPTTA also decided to give cash awards (Rs 2.20 lakh) to those UP paddlers, who achieved success during 2019. The awards will be given in a virtual ceremony in the third week of September. In fact, UP paddlers won medals at the 81st National Championship. “Felicitation of medal winners at the national championship was not held this year due to the pandemic. We have not met since January 2020 and no tournament was held since then. We cannot wait for a long while to felicitate the medal winners, or to award cash prizes of Rs 1 lakh, Rs 50,000 and Rs 30,000 to the top three position holders.” The awardees include the silver medalist girls’ team at the sub-junior nationals. A sum of Rs 12,500 each will be given to Anika Gupta (Ghaziabad), Suhani Mahajan (Ghaziabad), Avani Tripathi (Ghaziabad) and Trisha (Gautam Budh Nagar). Members of the bronze medalist team at the sub junior boys’ nationals will get Rs 7,500 each. The team members are Sarth Mishra (Ghaziabad), Shivam Chandra (Ghaziabad), Divyansh Srivastava (Lucknow) and Sridhar Joshi (Gautam Budh Nagar). Anika Gupta, singles bronze medalist in the cadet girl category, will get Rs 30,000. Divyansh Srivastava, silver medalist in the sub-junior boys category will get Rs 50,000. Divyansh Srivastava-Sarth Mishra, bronze medalists in the sub-junior boys’ doubles, will get Rs 15,000 each. The bronze medalist girls’ team of Suhana Narjinary (Moradabad), Ambika Gupta (Prayagraj), Mahika Dixit (Ghaziabad) and Radhapriya Goyal (Ghaziabad) will get Rs 7,500 each.