Government and citizens need to encourage para athletes more: Deepa Malik

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Deepa Malik along with Abhinav Bindra at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet. Image Source: XtraTime

Internet Desk: Deepa Malik the first Indian woman to win a medal in the ParaIympics isn’t only a sport woman but she is also a reformer in sports in India. Attending the literary meet she said,”I am very proud of the fact that I initiated a process in 2012 post Commonwealth Games in 2010, which was my first exposure in competing alongside the abled bodied and living in the commonwealth village in Delhi. That is when I had left small town of Ahmednagar (in Maharashtra) from where I used to come and go back.”

She also added “But when I stayed for three months at the village and interacted very closely with the abled bodied, a turning point happened. Nobody was saying ‘bye’ to each other in the abled bodied and whereas we were saying ‘when will our next national be’ because at that point of time, our federation was also going to face a bit of trouble.”

Deepa continued, “I just happened to ask Vijender (Singh) the boxer that ‘how come you all are saying ‘see you soon’? He says, Asian Games is just three-four weeks away. 2010 Guagzhau Asian Games were round the corner. I said that we also have Asian Games. So why are we being sent home?”

That’s when she walked into the ministries and asked the bureaucrats that she is sitting qualified for Asian Games, why she is being sent home? She wanted to stay back in the camp. That is where the journey of policies began and all this initiatives and compiling of the foreign policies started.

This was the point when Deepa was made member of the Planning Commission between 2012-2017.

She said, “I very happy to share that all the policies are in place. We are at par with abled bodied athletes. So much so that this Olympics, we were even made part of the Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme and given equal funding.

In last three years there was absence of proper federation for us. It had gone into some trouble but of late we have been able to formalize a federation.”

Deepa feels Various state governments have to take initiative and citizens as a whole have to take an initiative to respect and encourage para athletes in the country.