National Sports Awards Named 18 August 2026, Nearly Ten Months After Applications Closed
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports runs India's National Sports Awards. Here is how the five awards are applied for, what they pay, and how the 2025 list was delayed.
The National Sports Awards are the central government's principal honours for sportspersons, coaches and organisations that promote sport in India. The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports runs the process, and the President confers the awards each year at Rashtrapati Bhavan.
The 2025 round closed for online applications on 28 October 2025. Its winners were announced on 18 August 2026, nearly ten months later, and the round was delayed. The list spans athletics, badminton, boxing, chess, hockey, kabaddi, rowing, shooting, football and para-sport.
Five Awards for Different Kinds of Contribution
The Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna recognises exceptional performance by a sportsperson. The Arjuna Award honours consistent outstanding performance. The Arjuna Award (Lifetime) recognises lifetime contribution to the development of sport.
The Dronacharya Award goes to coaches who have produced medal winners at prestigious international events. The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar goes to corporate entities, whether public or private, and to non-governmental organisations that have played a visible role in promoting sport.
Eligibility for each award is set out in the award guidelines. The 2025 notice tells applicants to check that they are eligible under those guidelines, and it directs them to the full scheme copies on the ministry's website at yas.nic.in.
Online Applications Before a Fixed Deadline
Eligible sportspersons, coaches and entities must apply themselves. Applications are accepted only online, at www.dbtyas-sports.gov.in.
The last date was 11:59 pm on 28 October 2025, a Tuesday, according to KheloToday.
The notice gives an email address, sportsawards-moyas@gov.in, for queries. The landline is open from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm on working days, and two toll-free numbers are open from 8:00 am to 8:00 pm on working days.
The nomination process also started later than usual. In a report dated 13 April 2026 and carried by PTI, ThePrint says nominations started somewhat later than usual and that the selection committee made its recommendations in December 2025. The review of those recommendations was still under way at that point.
Cash Prizes Attached to Each Award
GKToday lists the cash prize for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna as ₹25 lakh, or ₹0.25 crore, and for the Arjuna Award as ₹15 lakh, or ₹0.15 crore. For the Dronacharya Award it gives ₹15 lakh for the lifetime category and ₹10 lakh for the regular category.
ThePrint's April 2026 report gives the same figures for the Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award.
The gap between the two Dronacharya categories is therefore ₹5 lakh, and the gap between the Khel Ratna and the Arjuna Award is ₹10 lakh. Of the amounts reported, the Khel Ratna carries the largest prize and the regular Dronacharya Award the smallest.
This article does not give a cash figure for the Arjuna Award (Lifetime) or the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar.
Recommendations, Then a Re-evaluation
After the selection committee made its recommendations, the ministry re-examined them. ThePrint reports that the approved names had not been released at that point. Sources in the Sports Ministry, who are not named, said the ministry was re-evaluating nominees to make sure only deserving athletes are honoured. The review was reported in April 2026, months before the list was announced.
A source said the value of the awards should not be diminished. The source cited Arjuna awardees who had little to show for their accomplishments, and past litigation by athletes who were not considered for the award.
The ministry reportedly thinks a selection panel may be unnecessary and favours clear, points-based criteria. The report compares that approach with Olympic medallists, who receive prize money of ₹75 lakh, paid automatically without a separate form.
The report says 24 names were shortlisted for the Arjuna Award. They include chess player Divya Deshmukh, whom it describes as the first Indian woman to win the chess World Cup, and decathlete Tejaswin Shankar, who won silver at the 2023 Asian Games and finished second at the Asian Championships in 2025.
Yogasana athlete Aarti Pal was recommended for the Arjuna Award in a first for the discipline, five years after the discipline was formally recognised, the report says.
The 2025 round was delayed, and no athlete was chosen for the Khel Ratna.
The 2025 Winners Announced on 18 August 2026
The announcement came on 18 August 2026, according to GKToday and All India Radio's News On AIR. The ministry said the National Sports Awards are presented every year to recognise and reward excellence in sports.
Seventeen sportspersons received the Arjuna Award. Athletics has three of them, Tejaswin Shankar, Muhammed Ajmal V and Priyanka Goswami, while badminton, chess, hockey and kabaddi have two each. The other Arjuna recipients are Treesa Jolly and Gayatri Gopichand in badminton, Narender Berwal in boxing, Dhanush Srikanth in deaf shooting, Lalremsiami and Rajkumar Pal in hockey, Surjeet and Pooja in kabaddi, Rudransh Khandelwal in para-shooting, Ekta Bhyan in para-athletics, Arvind Singh in rowing, and Akhil Sheoran in shooting. Vidit Santosh Gujrathi and Divya Deshmukh are the two chess players.
I Arumainayagam, listed under football, received the Arjuna Award (Lifetime). All India Radio gives the name as Isaiah Arumainayagam.
Five coaches received the Dronacharya Award. Parveer Singh (athletics), Chhote Lal Yadav (boxing) and Neha Nandkumar Chavan (shooting) received the regular award, while Dharmendra Singh Yadav (boxing) and Virender Kumar (wrestling) received the lifetime award. The Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puraskar went to the Army Paralympic Node in Pune.
No athlete was chosen for the Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna for 2025, according to GKToday, which says it is the first time since 2014 that the top honour has gone unawarded. ThePrint had reported in April, citing sources, that Hardik Singh was the sole Khel Ratna recommendation, but his name is not among the 2025 award winners.
The 2025 Round in Dates
The first fixed date was 28 October 2025, when online applications closed at 11:59 pm. For applicants, the gap to the announcement on 18 August 2026 was close to ten months.
In December 2025 the selection committee made its recommendations.
On 13 April 2026, ThePrint reported that the recommendations were under review and that the approved names had not been released.
The ministry announced the list on 18 August 2026.
The traditional presentation date is 29 August, the birth anniversary of Major Dhyan Chand. ThePrint says that date has not been followed in recent years because of scheduling issues and nominations being affected by major events.
The 2025 round was delayed, and no athlete was chosen for the Khel Ratna.
