A section of sportspersons felicitated on State Sports Day with chief minister Tarun Gogoi. Picture by Eastern Projections

Guwahati, Oct. 17: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi today announced the institution of two national-level awards for excellence in sports in honour of Radha Gobinda Baruah, a pioneer in the field of sports in the state.

Speaking at a function on State Sports Day, marking Baruah?s birth anniversary here, Gogoi said both the awards would be conferred upon the best performing sportspersons of the year in individual as well as team categories.

?The awards will carry cash prizes of Rs 50,000 per head. To judge the recipients, we will constitute a panel that will examine the performance of the deserving sportspersons,? Gogoi said.

The annual sports scholarship distribution ceremony of the state government was also part of the day?s programmes.

Gogoi reiterated that the state was determined to host the 33rd National Games in a befitting manner. ?The progress made so far in infrastructure development is satisfactory. We bade for the Games at a time when we had no money even to pay salaries or repair the bad roads. But, now we have got funds and have developed adequate infrastructure,? he said.

The chief minister?s sports adviser, Robin Bordoloi, said Assam would host the Games as per schedule which, according to the MoU with the Indian Olympic Association, is less than a month away.

Gogoi felicitated 20 sports-persons for excellence in different disciplines and distributed annual scholarships for 2004-05 among 35 sportspersons for their performance in state and national-level events in 2003-04.

As many as 59 sportspersons, including 10 national-level players from Kamrup, were to be awarded scholarships today. The directorate of sports extended 450 scholarships of Rs 3,600 each for state-level and Rs 4,800 each for national-level sports-persons of Assam. The scholarships will be sent to the remaining awar-dees through their respective district sports officers.

Gogoi also released a biography of the sports icon penned by Mitra Phukan.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) annual scholarships for 2004-05 were distributed to 117 sportspersons from Kamrup on the same occasion. The SAI scholarship comprises Rs 7,500 for national-level and Rs 5,400 for state-level sportspersons.

Additional chief secretary P.C. Sarma, Baruah?s son T.G. Baruah and veteran sports personalities attended the function.