In order to do away with controversies surrounding the selection process for the annual National sports awards in future, the Union Sports Ministry has revamped the scheme.

According to the new provisions, the selection committee for the Arjuna Award will be headed by a retired Supreme Court or High Court judge, and not more than one sportsperson/coach from a particular discipline shall be a member of the panel to avoid any bias towards any particular discipline. A sportsperson of eminence/sports administrator/sports expert belonging to para sports will now be a member of the Arjuna Award selection panel.

Besides, the new provisions want the nomination agencies to send nominations of deserving sportspersons and coaches, irrespective of whether they have applied to these agencies for this purpose.

The ministry, which has accepted most of the suggestions given by last year’s Arjuna Award selection committee headed by Kapil Dev, has said that more marks will be given for medals won in individual events. “For team events, marks will be computed taking into consideration the strength of the team.”

The ministry has reduced marks for weightage of performances from 90 to 80 per cent in case of Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, Arjuna and Dronacharya awards. From now, the proceedings of the selection committees will be video-graphed, a detailed internal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) will be followed to deal with nominations received from National Sports Federations and views of experts of various disciplines will be obtained for shortlisted nominations in team games.