New Delhi, Sep 23 (IANS) Olympic Gold Quest (OGQ) Thursday launched ‘Power your Champion’ programme to raise sustainable funding to create Olympic champions.
The programme aims to get a million Indians to contribute at least Rs.100 each per month, which would go towards the training and preparation of India’s top and rising athletes.
The OGQ, which has Chess champion Vishwanathan Anand, 12 Grand Slam winner Leander Paes, former sprint queen P.T Usha, four-time table tennis national champion Niraj Bajaj, supports 22 athletes as of now. All contributions will be eligible for income tax deduction.
‘We spend Rs.100 in a coffee shop every alternate day. If one million people contribute the same amount per month, OGQ could support the training and preparation of at least 2,000 grass root level athletes,’ Viren Rasquinha, CGQ chief operating officer and former India hockey captain said.
OGQ co-founder and eight-time World Billiards Champion Geet Sethi hoped the initiative will become a mass movement.
‘It has long been our dream to transform OGQ into a national movement. The ‘Power your Champion’ program is the first step in this direction. We have had tremendous support for this programme. It is a very emotional movement for every athlete to win a medal for the country. But why should we have only one medal every Olympics? Our initiative is aimed in supporting and preparing the athletes to get more medals for India,’ Sethi said.
Already employees of eight companies’ are supporting ‘Power your Champion’ programme. They are Edelweiss Capital, Deutsche Bank, Serviceberry Technologies Pvt. Ltd., Syntel Telecom, KK Nag Ltd., Neilsoft Ltd., Weikfield Products Co. Pvt. Ltd and BMC Software Pvt. Ltd. Students from Indian School Business (ISB) and IIM Ahmedabad and members of Young India (Youth wing of CII) and they aggregate to more than 4,000 supporters.
