The Dronacharya Award officially known as Dronacharya Award for sports and games. The Award is named after Drona, often reffered as Guru Drona, a character from the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata of ancient India. It is awarded annually by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. In India, the this Award is given to coaches as recognition for their contribution to a particular sport or for their role in an athlete’s rise to the top. It is also given to motivate coaches to dedicate themselves to raising the performance of their athletes to international standards.
It is officially called the Dronacharya Award for outstanding Coaches in Sports and Games, for coaches who help athletes achieve excellence over a period of four years. Recipients are selected by a constituted by the Ministry and are honoured to have done outstanding and meritorious work on a consistent bases and enabled sportsperson to excel in international events over a period of four years.The awardees are given a bronze statue of Guru Drona , a certificate, and a cash prize of Rs 10 Lakh. The prize was earlier Rs 5 Lakhs but doubled in 2020.
The Dronacharya Award was first handed out in 1985, and the first Dronacharya Award winner was wrestling coach Bhalchandra Bhaskar Bhagwat. The first woman to win to Dronacharya Award was weightlifting coach Hansa Sharma in 2000.
The award is given only to the disciplines included in the events like Olympic Games, Paralympic Games, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games, World Championship and World Cup along with Cricket, Indigenous Games,and Parasports. The nomination for the award are received from all government recognised National Sports Federations, the Indian Olympic Association, the Sports Authority of India,the Sports Promotion and control boards and the state and the Union territory governments with not more than two eligible coaches nominated for each sports discipline.
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