By Susil Premalal

Sports Minister Namal Rajapaksa has decided to give 60 national and international athletes a special monthly allowance of Rs 100,000.

The 60 athletes will be chosen from national pools in training going by their potential to deliver high performance.
The objective is to motivate athletes to achieve medals at the 2022 Asian Games and Commonwealth Games.  The athletes will be chosen by the High Performance committee of the National Sports Council (NSC) 
Athletics, weightlifting, boxing, judo, badminton, swimming and Para sports are the seven sports which are likely to benefit from this scheme.

Athletes signed contracts with the Sports Ministry during the past week to receive Rs. 25,000 for nutrition. That means the Sports Ministry would be spending Rs. 125,000 per athlete each month.

The Sports Minister’s aim is to produce professional athletes who would go on to represent the country with distinction at Asian Games and Commonwealth leading up to the Olympics.  This is the first time the Sports Ministry is investing on potential medal winning athletes.