Click to play videoBhopal: The Indian women's hockey team is in no mood to let its fight for justice fizzle out.
Although assurances of financial help are pouring in for the women's hockey team but the players are taking all of them with a pinch of salt and are not letting the pressure ease on their lackadaisical bosses.
The black arm bands aren't coming off since they tied them on in a novel protest on Thursday morning.
The women's hockey team has succeeded in creating quite a stir but their lack of faith in Hockey India continues.
"Our fight is with Hockey India regarding our incentives. We want our incentives and there should be no discrimination between men and women," says women's team player Mamta Kharab.
Hockey India has certainly been forced into a corner and issued a press note claiming that both the men's and women's teams will be paid at par and players will be offered graded annual contracts.
The Rs 50,000 paid to each player at the moment is only an advance and the balance amount will be cleared by the newly elected body after Hockey India elections on February 7.
The committee to look after a special player's fund will now also include the captains of the women's and men's national teams.
But the players aren't satisfied with these assurances....
I had a talk with Hockey India President Vidya Stokes and she had said that women's team has also got sponsorship from Sahara and soon Sahara is going to release funds for women's hockey. When we questioned are when are these funds going to be released and what is the amount of funds, she didn't give us a reply. She said that you need not know all this," claims centre forward Deepika Murthy
The girls have succeeded in getting some financial help with the Chambers of Commerce having promised Rs 10 lakh and the Madhya Pradesh government adding Rs 1 crore to the kitty.
"I said please give me Rs 1 crore and he said you have Rs 1 crore from me. I was just talking to the girls," says Union Sports Minister MS Gill.
The girls argue that these assurances have been made quite often in the past and rarely come through and so are unwilling to take the heat off for the moment.
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