Banerjee assures jobs to CWG, other medal winners

KOLKATA - Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday assured jobs to several Commonwealth Games (CWG) medal winners and other sportspersons and announced that her department will set up four academies to groom talent with the 2012 Olympics in mind.

Banerjees assurances and announcements came at a function organised by the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) at the Town Hall to felicitate Commonwealth Games medal winners from West Bengal.

The minister said archer Rahul Banerjee, disabled swimmer Prasanta Karmakar, disabled athlete Prabir Sarkar and English Channel conqueror Amrita Das will be given jobs in the railways.

While Rahul and Prashanta won medals in the CWG, Prabir won a long jump silver in the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled at Busan in 2002.

Amrita Das crossed the English Channel last month.

Among others feted were paddlers Soumyadeep Roy, Mouma Das, Subhojit Saha and Poulomi Ghatak and archer Dola Banerjee.

CWG gold medallists were given Rs.5 lakh, silver medal winners Rs.4 lakh and bronze winners Rs.3 lakh respectively.

Prabir Sarkar and Amrita Das got Rs.2 lakh each.

CWG medal winners Sukhen Dey, Leander Paes, Rahamatullah Molla and Bharat Chhetri did not attend the programme.

Banerjee said the railways will establish academies for archery, table tennis, wrestling and boxing. The wrestling and boxing academies will be housed in Delhi, the table tennis facility in Siliguri and the one on archery in the city on railway land.

She said the Railways Sports Promotion board has identified six sports disciplines - archery, wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, athletics and swimming - where the railways sportspersons can hope to bring home medals form the Olympics. We will identify four more disciplines later, she said.