New Delhi, Oct 19 (Bureau) A total of 50 athletes from various states of North-East have been selected for the NE Sports Diet Scholarship-2021 of Helping Hands, informed the NGO’s president and Special Commissioner of Delhi Police Robin Hibu here on Tuesday. Informing about the diet scholarship programme, Hibu said, “We invited applications from North East sports persons below 20 years who won medal in the state and national level, and from weak financial background for the NE Sports Diet Scholarship-2021. We had received around 2,700 applications and 50 sports persons got selected.” He said those selected athletes will get ‘scholarship’ in the form of “balanced diet” for four years which would cost around Rs 2.5 crore.
“We are not giving cash but balanced diet for four years to the athletes so that they can prepare themselves for their respective events. We believe North East is the store house of potential for Olympic medal winners,” Hibu said while referring to Olympic medallists Lovlina Borgohain and Saikhom Mirabai Chanu. He also informed that the selected athletes will be handed over to the scholarship by former Indian cricket team captain Kapil Dev at an event which would be announced by the NGO very soon.