BCCI to help sportspersons in five disciplines

Mumbai, Apr 22 (UNI) The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has identified five disciplines to help the sportspersons prepare themselves for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi and a corpus of Rs 50 crore has been set aside for this venture with the Union Government.

''We will have a meeting with the government at the end of this month or first week of May to set up a committee to oversee this.

The disciplines that would benefit are swimming, archery, judo, wrestling and shooting, BCCI Chief Administrative Officer Ratnakar Shetty told reporters on the sidelines of a function here last night.

''We will not be dealing with the respective federations but with the government,'' he added.

The BCCI official said the initiative for this venture had come from former Union Sports Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar.

Shetty said the BCCI has also come forward to finance the training and participation of tennis player Karan Rastogi, squash player Aditya Jagtap and shuttler Anand Pawar as part of its policy to help talented sports persons in other disciplines.

''We are giving Rastogi Rs 40 lakh, Jagtap Rs 26 lakh and Pawar Rs 14 lakh,'' he added.

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