Tennis stars' outstanding bills cleared

“We have cleared all the pending bills, amounting to Rs 1 crore, of five tennis players and the AITA will receive the payment on Friday,” Rahul Bhatnagar, joint secretary of the Sports Ministry, told reporters on Saturday.

Bhatnagar said the dues of Leander Paes (Rs 19.26 lakh), Mahesh Bhupathi (Rs 19.62 lakh), Rohan Bopanna (Rs 18.33 lakh), Somdev Devvarman (Rs 25.88 lakh) and Sania Mirza (Rs 17.52 lakh) were cleared in order to help them with the Commonwealth Games preparation.
“We have been funding the 17 CWG disciplines. It is the AITA who did not submit their bills for a long time. We advised them to put their house in order and once they submitted the bills, we reimbursed the money within a week's time,” Bhatnagar said.

“The funds have been sanctioned under the scheme for Preparation of Indian Team for the Commonwealth Games. We can reimburse travel only in the economy class and $100 per day for their stay, provided the tournament/travel/stay have been not sponsored and for 75 days each year. We have reimbursed their bills of two years,” he added.

The Central government has approved Rs 678 crore for the training of elite players of all disciplines of the CWG.