Hyderabad’s Anup Kumar Yama hopes to get lucky fifth time around

A winner of multiple roller skating titles like the International Roller Cup, the 30-year-old has been refused the Arjuna award four times in the past.

Major changes took place in the Arjuna award selection criteria last year. To make the award selection more transparent, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports formulated a points based system. In this system, various points were allotted to various international medals won in a four year period. It was further declared that 90% weightage is to be given for the medals won at various international championships whereas 10% weightage is on the marks given by the selection committee.

Anup got the highest points amongst all other sports persons in the group for 2014’s Arjuna award. Cumulating the points on the basis of various championship wins, he got a total of 177 points. However, the selection committee ignored him for the fourth time.

A sports enthusiast filed a RTI query to know the reason behind Anup not being conferred the top award. The Ministry in its reply mentions that Anup's points were miscalculated. But even after correcting, Anup was well ahead in the points tally.

Anup has now applied again for the award for the fifth time, hoping that the government will finally recognise his contributions to the country. A lot of awareness has now been created recently by a skating enthusiast who started an online petition on www.change.org asking the Union Sports Minister — Sarbananda Sonowal to confer Anup with the Arjuna Award.