The National Sports Awards, which consist of six separate awards awarded to athletes, coaches, or organizations for their accomplishments and contributions to the development of Indian sports, are regarded as the highest athletic honors in the country. The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, also known as the Khel Ratna, the Arjuna Award, the Dronacharya Award, the Major Dhyan Chand Award, the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, also known as the MAKA Trophy, and the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar are the six main awards that make up India’s National Sports Awards. Scroll down to read the list of national sports awards in India.
List Of National Sports Awards of India
An unofficial component of the list, the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award has been presented annually since 2004 with the six National Sports Awards. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports of India bestows the National Sports Awards every year.
The President of India presents honors to the nominated athletes at the Presidential Palace, usually on August 29, India’s National Sports Day, which also happens to be Major Dhyan Chand’s birthday.
National Sports Awards: Full list
Khel Ratna Award
The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award replaced the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, which was first given out in 2021. The Khel Ratna is regarded as the greatest sports honor in India. It was first established in 1991–1992. Winners of the Khel Ratna get a cash prize, a certificate, and a medallion for their exceptional four-year athletic performance.
The inaugural Khel Ratna winner was Viswanathan Anand, a grandmaster of Indian chess. Among the other winners are several renowned athletes, like MC Mary Kom, PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal, Vijender Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, and Virat Kohli.
The youngest recipient of the Khel Ratna is pistol shooter Abhinav Bindra, who made Olympic history in Beijing in 2008 by winning India’s first-ever individual gold medal. Bindra was only eighteen when he took home the prize in 2001. Karnam Malleswari, an Olympic bronze medalist in weightlifting, was the first Indian woman to win the Khel Ratna in 1994–95.
Arjuna Award
The Arjuna Award was established in 1961 and is named for Arjuna, the primary character of the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata. It was the greatest athletic honor in India before to the establishment of the Khel Ratna.
A statuette of Arjuna, a certificate, and a monetary prize are awarded to the recipients of the Arjuna Award, which is given out for consistently excellent performance over four years.
PK Banerjee, an Olympian football player from India, was one of the 20 winners of the first Arjuna Award, which was presented in 1961. The first female recipient of the Arjuna Award was hockey player Anna Lumsden.
A Khel Ratna recipient is not eligible to be nominated for the Arjuna Award, as per existing regulations. Still, a winner of the Arjuna can be nominated for the Khel Ratna.
Dronacharya Award
India’s highest sports award for coaches was established in 1985 and is known as the Dronacharya Award. It is given to people who produce medal winners at important international competitions.
Remarkably, in the Mahabharata, Arjuna’s mentor or coach was Dronacharya, also known as Drona. A bronze statue of Dronacharya, a certificate, and monetary prizes are given to the winners.
Among the first Dronacharya Award winners were wrestling coach Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat, boxing coach Om Prakash Bharadwaj, and famed athletics coach OM Nambiar, who is credited with shaping the career of Indian sprint queen PT Usha.
Renu Kohli, a sports coach, was the first woman to receive the Dronacharya Award in 2002.
Both lifetime achievements and recent accomplishments are recognized with the Dronacharya Award.
Major Dhyan Chand Award
The Major Dhyan Chand Award, another accolade established in honor of hockey wizard Dhyan Chand, is India’s highest recognition for lifetime accomplishments in sports.
A Dhyan Chand figurine, a certificate, and a cash prize are awarded to the winners, who have been recognized since 2002 for their outstanding performances and individual contributions to the advancement of sports.
The inaugural Major Dhyan Chand Award recipients were Olympian boxer Shahuraj Birajdar, player Ashok Diwan of the Indian men’s hockey team, and renowned player and coach Aparna Ghosh of the Indian women’s basketball team.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy
The Maulana Abul Kalam Azad Trophy, often known as the MAKA Trophy, is the oldest National Sports Award in India and was established in 1956–1957.
The medal, which bears the name of Indian liberation hero and first education minister Abul Kalam Azad, is granted to the university that has excelled in inter-university competitions during the previous academic year.
Bombay University won the first prize, but since then, Amritsar, Punjab’s Guru Nanak Dev University has won 22 of the 64 prizes that were given out, dominating the winners’ list. The prize consists of a financial payout as well as a rolling MAKA Trophy that is awarded to the winner annually.
Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar
The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar is an annual award that has been a mainstay of the National Sports Awards list since 2009. It is given to organizations, corporations (both public and private), and people who have made contributions to the promotion and development of sports over the last three years.
Translated from Hindi to English, the award’s name is the National Sports Promotion Award.
Sports for development, hiring athletes and other sports welfare initiatives, identifying and developing young talent, and promoting sports through corporate social responsibility are the four categories in which nominees are chosen.
Each category’s winners receive a trophy and citation. A single category may have more than one winner in a given year.
Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award
The first two people to reach the top of the world’s highest mountain, Mount Everest, were Indian mountaineer Tenzing Norgay, who was originally from Nepal, and New Zealander Edmund Hillary.
The Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Award was created in 1994 as a tribute to Norgay and is intended to honor exceptional accomplishments in the realm of adventure sports and activities on land, sea, or the air. Sports like sailing, skydiving, mountaineering, and open-water swimming are taken into consideration.
Since 2004, the Tenzing Norgay National Adventure Awards, which are the adventure sports counterpart of the Arjuna Award, have been given out in addition to the six main national prizes. Adventure sports achievements were also recognized with the Arjuna Award before the creation of the award.
Every year, the prize is usually split into four categories: lifetime achievement, water (sea) adventure, air adventure, and land adventure.
