Chandigarh: The UT education department on Friday honoured outstanding sportspersons of 53rd National School Games 2007-08 and other events on National Sports Day in the memory of late hockey legend Dhyan Chand at Government College for Girls, Sector 11. UT home-cum-education secretary Sanjay Kumar presented gifts and certificates to the sportspersons, including some former international athletes. Renowned international sportspersons including Wg Cdr Satish Bhatia, Gurdishpal Singh, Satinder Walia, Sumiti Kanwar, Suman Malhan, Rama Kant, Parminder Dhillon, Prema Saini, Atul Kapoor, Manjeet Singh, Capt GS Sidhu and PS Sidhu were honoured on the occasion. Education secretary also gave away gifts and certificates to budding sportspersons of various schools who brought laurels to the city by winning medals at the 2007-08 National School Games and other events. The students of the city won as many as 30 medals including 8 Gold, 7 Silver and 15 Bronze.

Visually impaired students from the Institute of Blind who participated at the 4th National Athletic Meet for the Blind held at Ludhiana and won 8 gold, 13 silver and 10 bonze were also honoured. Addressing the gathering, Sanjay Kumar said, “Children today are lucky to have such opportunities, infrastructure and exposure and they should use them to the fullest.” He also encouraged the students to never give up and keep on trying hard till they achieve their coveted goal.

DPI (schools), SK Setia, revealed that the refreshment rates have been increased from Rs 4 to Rs 15 per day and the outstation refreshment rates during camps have been fixed to Rs 50 per day. He also congratulated all the PTIs/DPEs and lecturers (physical education), who have worked tirelessly for achieving great success.