At a function at the State Youth Centre, medallists and even participants in international events received just Rs 50,000 each while gold medallists in national events were given Rs one lakh with silver and bronze medallists receiving Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively.

The strange allocation came under question from many quarters but neither the sports minister Gulihatti D Shekar nor the DYSS officials would make any clarification on the issue.

Oblivious to the issues that surrounded them, the minister and sports secretary I M Vittal Murthy spoke about the event and the future of sports in the State. “We have never done something like this,” said Murthy. “We have been planning to conduct an event of this magnitude for many years but it needed governmental support. The present government looked in to it and gave us the go-through. We were supposed to hold the event in March but it got delayed. We hope to conduct this event every year in March from now on.”

Shekar said: “The govern-ment realised that a lot of our athletes were moving out of the State to represent other States where they get good deal of money. The primary issue was that we weren’t recognising them.” The athletes were elated. “This is a very good move,” said Varshini Gubbi, bronze medallist at the sixth Asian age group water polo meet.