Parents of a deceased table tennis player await justice while the Government cites rules
The death of 18-year-old Vishwa Deenadayalan on the road from Guwahati to Shillong on April 17 stunned the sporting world. Prompting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur to express their condolences.
It is been more than a month since their son. National-ranked TT player Vishwa Deenadayalan, died in a road accident in Shillong for an inter-state tournament.
However, his parents are still waiting for a response from the Sports Authority of India (SAI) regarding insurance coverage. Under the Government’s flagship Khelo India an initiative to “establish India as a great sporting nation.”
The death of the 18-year-old on the road from Guwahati to Shillong on April 17 stunned the sporting world. With PM Narendra Modi also Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur expressing their condolences.
“We had high expectations for Vishwa. He kept telling me he’d make the World Championships this year. I used to beg God to keep me alive until I saw him compete in the Olympics. But he’s no longer with us. “We’ve lost everything,” the father said, his voice breaking with emotion.
Deenadayalan, 58, is out of work after leaving an MNC’s HR department in Chennai in 2020. Anuradha, his wife, manages their city residence. “We made do with my savings,” he explained.
When contacted by The Indian Express, SAI stated that Vishwa was not cover by its rules because he was “not a trainee at a National Centre of Excellence or Khelo India accredite academy in the previous cycle (June 1, 2021, to May 31, 2022).”
The Tamil Nadu player was a sub-junior also junior national champion and a member of the senior India team.
Despite SAI’s response to this news. A document on the Khelo India website makes no distinction between accredited and non-accredited academies. Instead, the authority details the allowance allowed with this line at the end. They will also be given the benefit of insurance claim” under the sub-head “Funding to Khelo India Athlete (KIA) trained in non-accredite academies.”
Deenadayalan start that he “saw the document that all Khelo India athletes were insure” and “read in newspapers” about it and. That all he wants is for the Government to look at the case “sympathetically” because his son was “on national duty” at the time of the accident.
