Tamil Nadu Para-Athlete Stages Protest After 16-Year Wait For Government Job

J Deepa, a para-athlete who was honoured with the Kalpana Chawla Award by the Tamil Nadu government in 2010, has still not received a permanent government job. The para-athlete with locomotor disability from Madurai won several international medals in the past and her achievements were recognised by then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi in 2010. However, she is currently working as a visiting coach with the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) on a monthly salary of Rs 20,000. Despite multiple requests and even an announcement from Udhayanidhi Stalin, who handles the sports development portfolio, in 2022, she has not received the government job. The 43-year-old even staged a protest outside the secretariat on Wednesday.

She won a silver medal in the 2004 Belgian Paralympic Championships, a bronze at the 2005 International Open German Athletics Championships, and several other awards on the national level.

Back in 2010, she appealed the Tamil Nadu government for a government job as an athletics coach. However, her request did not yield any results. In 2022, there was an announcement in the state assembly that she will receive the job but once again, nothing came out of it.

“When I applied for the SDAT coaches' recruitment in 2022, I was not issued a hall ticket, citing I did not possess a National Institute of Sports diploma,” she told The New Indian Express.

She completed the course and applied once again for recruitment, but she was denied a hall ticket as she was “found ineligible under the roster system”.

According to a report by The New Indian Express, senior government officials said that it was unfortunate that she has not received the job till now. They added that "the authority would do its best to support her and noted she has been associated with SDAT for several years".