National Sports Awards announced: Punjab retains prestigious MAKA Trophy
Kanwar Inder Singh/ royalpatiala.in News/ January 2,2025
Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports announced the National Sports Awards 2024 today. The awardees will receive their awards from the President of India at a specially organized function at Rashtrapati Bhavan on 17th January, 2025 (Friday) at 1100 hours.
National Sports Awards announced: Punjab retains prestigious MAKA Trophy for another year as Chandigarh University is the winner of this prestigious trophy, LPU declared first runner up and GNDU is the second runner’s up. Till date GNDU has won MAKA trophy for record 25 times.
Based on the recommendations of the Committee and after due scrutiny, Government has decided to confer awards upon the following sportspersons, coaches, university and entity:
- Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award 2024
| S. No. | Name of the Sportsperson | Discipline |
| 1. | Shri Gukesh D | Chess |
| 2. | Shri Harmanpreet Singh | Hockey |
| 3. | Shri Praveen Kumar | Para-Athletics |
| 4. | Ms. Manu Bhakar | Shooting |
- Arjuna Awards for outstanding performance in Sports and Games 2024
| S. No. | Name of the Sportsperson | Discipline |
| 1. | Ms. Jyothi Yarraji | Athletics |
| 2. | Ms. Annu Rani | Athletics |
| 3. | Ms. Nitu | Boxing |
| 4. | Ms. Saweety | Boxing |
| 5. | Ms. Vantika Agrawal | Chess |
| 6. | Ms. Salima Tete | Hockey |
| 7. | Shri Abhishek | Hockey |
| 8. | Shri Sanjay | Hockey |
| 9. | Shri Jarmanpreet Singh | Hockey |
| 10. | Shri Sukhjeet Singh | Hockey |
| 11. | Shri Rakesh Kumar | Para-Archery |
| 12. | Ms. Preeti Pal | Para-Athletics |
| 13. | Ms. Jeevanji Deepthi | Para-Athletics |
| 14. | Shri Ajeet Singh | Para-Athletics |
| 15. | Shri Sachin Sarjerao Khilari | Para-Athletics |
| 16. | Shri Dharambir | Para-Athletics |
| 17. | Shri Pranav Soorma | Para-Athletics |
| 18. | Shri H Hokato Sema | Para-Athletics |
| 19. | Ms. Simran | Para-Athletics |
| 20. | Shri Navdeep | Para-Athletics |
| 21. | Shri Nitesh Kumar | Para-Badminton |
| 22. | Ms. Thulasimathi Murugesan | Para-Badminton |
| 23. | Ms. Nithya Sre Sumathy Sivan | Para-Badminton |
| 24. | Ms. Manisha Ramadass | Para-Badminton |
| 25. | Shri Kapil Parmar | Para-Judo |
| 26. | Ms. Mona Agarwal | Para-Shooting |
| 27. | Ms. Rubina Francis | Para-Shooting |
| 28. | Shri Swapnil Suresh Kusale | Shooting |
| 29. | Shri Sarabjot Singh | Shooting |
| 30. | Shri Abhay Singh | Squash |
| 31. | Shri Sajan Prakash | Swimming |
| 32. | Shri Aman | Wrestling |
- Arjuna Awards (Lifetime) for outstanding performance in Sports and Games 2024
| S. No. | Name of the Sportsperson | Discipline |
| 1. | Shri Sucha Singh | Athletics |
| 2. | Shri Murlikant Rajaram Petkar | Para-Swimming |
- Dronacharya Award for outstanding coaches in Sports and Games 2024
- Regular Category:
| S. No. | Name of the Coach | Discipline |
| 1. | Shri Subhash Rana | Para-Shooting |
| 2. | Ms. Deepali Deshpande | Shooting |
| 3. | Shri Sandeep Sangwan | Hockey |
- Lifetime Category:
| S. No. | Name of the Coach | Discipline |
| 1. | Shri S Muralidharan | Badminton |
| 2. | Shri Armando Agnelo Colaco | Football |
- Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar
| S. No. | Name of the Entity |
| 1. | Physical Education Foundation of India |
(vi) Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy 2024:
| S. No. | Name of University | |
| 1 | Chandigarh University | Overall winner University |
| 2 | Lovely Professional University, (PB) | 1st runner up University |
| 3 | Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar | 2nd runner up University |
National Sports Awards are given every year to recognize and reward excellence in sports.
‘Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award’ is given for the spectacular and most outstanding performance in the field of sports by a sportsperson over the period of the previous four years.
‘Arjuna Award for outstanding performance in Sports and Games’ is given for good performance over a period of the previous four years and for showing qualities of leadership, sportsmanship and a sense of discipline.
Arjuna Award (Lifetime) is given to honour and motivate those sportspersons who have contributed to sports by their performance and continue to contribute to promotion of sports even after their retirement from active sporting career.
‘Dronacharya Award for outstanding coaches in Sports and Games’ is given to coaches for doing outstanding and meritorious work on a consistent basis and for enabling sportspersons to excel in International events.
The overall top performing university in Khelo India University Games is given the Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (MAKA) Trophy.
The applications were invited online and sportspersons/coaches/entities were permitted to self-apply through a dedicated Online Portal. A large number of applications were received for these awards this year, which were considered by the Selection Committee headed by Justice (Retd.) V. Ramasubramanian, Supreme Court of India and consisting members from eminent sportspersons, persons having experience in sports journalism and sports administrators.
