Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports will be conducting a ceremony to give out trophies of the National Sports Awards 2020 to all the winners.

Last year, the ceremony took place virtually on August 29, due to Covid-19 restrictions but now the ceremony will be held on November 1 at the Ashoka Hotel in New Delhi.

Speaking to ANI, an official of the Sports Ministry said, “We will be providing trophies to all the players as they were not able to receive them because of the virtual ceremony. Earlier, players had complained about receiving only the cheques and not the trophies, so now a ceremony will be held to felicitate those players.”

National Sports Awards which include the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award (now renamed as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award), the Arjuna award, the Dronacharya award, and the Dhyan Chand award, are conferred on athletes every year by the President of India at the Rashtrapati Bhavan on August 29, the National Sports Day.

Retired Justice of Supreme Court Justice Mukundakam Sharma was selected as the Chairperson of the Committee.

“The Members include eminent names from the field of Indian Sports including Virender Sehwag (Cricket), Sardar Singh (Hockey), Monalisa Baruah Mehta (Table Tennis), Deepa Malik (Para-athletics), Venkatesan Devarajan (Boxing) as well as well-known media persons including Sports Commentator Manish Batavia and Sports Journalists Alok Sinha and Neeru Bhatia,” the Sports Ministry’s press statement had read.