BHUBANESWAR 14-Jul-2006 64
Woman hockey international Subhadra Pradhan received the first major recognition of her career when the Ekalabya Award for the year 2005 was conferred on her today. State Revenue Minister Manmohan Samal presented the annual award, which carried a purse of Rs 75,000, to the 20-year-old India mid-fielder at a function here.
Woman volleyball international Jhililata Sena and woman football international Sasmita Mallick were felicitated on the occasion with citations and cash awards of Rs 10,000 each. In the absence of Sena, who is now busy in the National camp at Gandhinagar, her brother Shivanand, a former National-level swimmer, received the citation.
Rajya Sabha Member Baijayant Panda, who is also the chairman of the award was present at the function. Former junior India captain Pradhan became the 13th recipient of the Ekalabya Award, which was instituted in the year 1993 by IMFA group of companies` Indian Metals Public Charitable Trust (IMPaCT) with the aim to encourage young and outstanding sportspersons of the State.
The earlier 12 recipients include Rachita Mistry, Anuradha Biswal (both athletics); Dilip Tirkey, Lazrus Barla, Ignace Tirkey, Prabodh Tirkey, William Xalxo, Gloria Dung Dung (all hockey); Shiv Sundar Das, Debasis Mohanty, Sanjay Raul and Rashmi Ranjan Parida (all cricket).
A seven-member committee, comprising BJ Panda, B Chatterjee, SC Patnaik, BB Mishra, Dillip Satpathy, Anita Pattanayak and S Maqbool Ali, selected recipients of the 13th Ekalabya Award and Citations.
