New Delhi: The Sports Ministry is likely to kick-start the nomination process for this year's National Sports Awards next month.
The National Sports Awards for the year 2025 were announced on Tuesday, more than six months after the recommendations were sent to the Ministry by the Justice (Retd) Arun Mishra-led selection committee.
The delay was caused by a re-evaluation process initiated by the Ministry.
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No athlete was named for the 2025 Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award, the country's highest sporting honour. Only 17 names were approved for the Arjuna award, seven less than the number recommended by the selection committee.
"The nomination process for the 2026 National Sports Awards will be started next month in all likelihood," a well-placed source told PTI without specifying any date.
The nomination process is carried out entirely online with eligible athletes allowed to send their names directly without any recommendation letters as was the case some years ago.
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As per existing rules, only one Khel Ratna award is to be given every year to an individual sportsperson and will be relaxed only in "exceptional circumstances."
However, in 2024, India had four Khel Ratna winners including world champion chess player D Gukesh, Olympic bronze-winning men's hockey captain Harmanpreet Singh, Paralympic gold-winning high jumper Praveen Kumar and Paris Olympics double bronze-medallist shooter Manu Bhaker.
For both the Khel Ratna and Arjuna award nominations, 80 per cent weightage is given to medals won in events of the disciplines covered in Olympic Games, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games. Performance of four years is taken into account for both the honours.
Winners of medals in Olympics and Paralympics are automatically considered for Khel Ratna or Arjuna Awards if the athlete concerned has not been conferred with either of the two honours.
The re-evaluation and omission of some recommended names from the 2025 list was an unprecedented move by the Ministry, which has repeatedly stated that it would "preserve the integrity of the awards" and ensure that only worthy names are bestowed with the honours.
"As has been our position, awards should only be on merit of performance. This re-evaluation was a reflection of that resolve. The committee's recommendations are not binding on the Ministry," said the ministry source without elaborating on the details of the re-evaluation process.
It is reliably learnt that the entire exercise was overseen by Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya.
World Cup-winning chess player Divya Deshmukh, decathlete and high jumper Tejaswin Shankar and shuttler Gayatri Gopichand were among the 17 sportspersons named for the Arjuna Award on Tuesday.
Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi, Gayatri Gopichand's women's doubles partner Treesa Jolly, Glasgow Commonwealth Games silver-medallist boxer Narender Berwal (+92kg), and young deaf rifle shooter Dhanush Srikanth were among the other notable names in the list.
The 19-year-old Deshmukh is the first Indian woman to win the World Cup. Vidit Gujrathi was part of the gold-winning Indian team at the 2024 Chess Olympiad.
Tejaswin Shankar, who won a historic decathlon silver medal in the Asian Games in 2023 and followed it up with a second-place finish in the Asian Championships last year, recently won a path-breaking bronze in the Commonwealth Games despite battling a knee problem.
In 2024, a record 32 athletes were conferred the Arjuna award, which included 17 from para-sports. This time, only two names from para-sports made the final cut.
The Khel Ratna comes with a medallion, a citation and a cash prize of Rs 25 lakh, while the Arjuna award makes the winner richer by Rs 15 lakh.
