The award carries Rs 25,000 and a citation. In all, 22 disciplines have been chosen for the awards. There are 22 male recipients, 15 female and three handicapped sportspersons in the list. Three sportspersons have also been given special awards, while three have been chosen for the Dadoji Kondadev award.

The other major award winners are: Rupali Repale special award for swimming, Surendra Chavan and Hrishikesh Yadav for mountaineering, Abhijeet Kunte and Pallavi Shah for chess.

Khaire said the recipients have been chosen totally on credit and the earlier recommendations of former chief minister Manohar Joshi, who also held the sports portfolio, have been respected and no changes have been made in the list.

The awards ceremony is likely be held in May at Aurangabad. The 1998-99 awardsapplications will be received from July 1 to July 31 and the same would be declared on August 14.

Following is the list of awardees:

Discipline Men Women

Athletics Linesh Pathak (Mumbai) Urmila More (Kolhapur)

Swimming Milind Kopikar (Mumbai) Naina Durne (Amravati)

Gymnastics Bhagyashree Rane (Mumbai)

Shooting Sham Bali (Mumbai)

Wrestling Prakash Jadhav (Kolhapur)

Powerlifting Sanjay Rahate (Mumbai) Pallavi Ghude (Thane)

Basketball Stephen Rodriques (Mumbai) Anirka Gujar (Satara)

Cricket Amol Muzumdar (Mumbai) Rucha Shinde (Aurangabad)

Kho-Kho Lalit Sawant (Mumbai) Aarti Tade (Pune)

Kabbadi Pramod Mhatre (Mumbai) Anuradha Bhosale (Kolhapur)

Volleyball Nitin Suvarna (Mumbai) Dhanashree Sathe (Solapur)

Bodybuilding Pravin Sankpal (Mumbai)

Boxing Vijay Yadav (Pune)

Table Tennis Rohit Chaudhary (Pune) Shamali Mhatre (Mumbai)

Weightlifting V Mangaonkar (Mumbai) Madhavi Patil (Thane)

Judo Anil Unecha(Pune) Smita Lonkar (Pune)

Chess Abhijeet Kunte (Pune) Pallavi Shah (Kolhapur)

Badminton Amrish Shinde (Thane)

Mallkhamb Satyajit Shinde (Pune)

Hockey Gavin Fereira (Mumbai)

Handball Sudip Waghchore (Pune) Vandana Sakure (Bhandara)

Cycling Ramesh Deokar (Pune) Neeta Rajput (Pune)

Shooting ball Sadashiv Mane (Kolhapur)

Handicapped Sportsmen:

Vilas More (Mumbai), Ramdas Dhamale (Ahmednagar), Pravin Sorte (Nagpur).

Special awards:

Mountaineering: Surendra Chavan, Hrishikesh Yadav;

Swimming:Rupali Repale.

Dadaji Kondev Awards: Satindarpal Singh Walia (Mumbai) for hockey, Mundappa Kumar (Mumbai) for weightlifting, Ajit Singh Kochar (Pune) for boxing.

Awards for sports administrators:

Arun Kondskar (Amravati), TN Sidra (Nagpur), Mukund Dhus (Mumbai), Daulatrao Shinde (Nashik), Ramesh Pare (Nanded), Shivaji Patil (Kolhapur), Malhari Dikhale (Pune).