India golfer SSP Chawrasia on Thursday criticised the Indian Olympic Association and Sports ministry for not disbursing the full amount of promised Rs 30 lakh earmarked as preparatory money for the Rio Olympics.
Chawrasia claimed that fellow golfer Anirban Lahiri had also not received the promised sum from the Sports ministry.
An angry Chawrasia said the IOA officials at the Rio Games treated the golfers as if they were “servants”.
“It has been four months and they have had several paperworks done but Lahiri, a winner of 16 titles around the world, was not even paid a penny, while Chawrasia himself managed to get Rs 5.5 lakh so far,” Chawrasia was quoted as saying by PTI.
“I have the letter where they promised to reimburse up to Rs 30 lakh. But post-Rio we’re told that the amount is reduced to Rs 15 lakh,” fumed Chawrasia.
“There were no proper arrangement right from vehicle arrangement. It was freezing cold and kept raining and they did not even arrange an umbrella or raincoat for us. They would behave as if they were ‘maalik’ (owners) and we were their ‘naukars’ (servants),” Chawrasia claimed.
“We were asked to wait at the airport for four hours for a vehicle and Lahiri came on his own. We were feeling so bad. Now we will think twice before representing India at Olympics. We don’t like to keep on harping on this subject as we want to concentrate on the tougher assignments ahead,” he added.