KATHMANDU: Hansaraj Hulas Chand & Company Pvt Ltd today signed a sponsorship deal with Nepal Sports Journalist Forum (NSJF) for the Player of the Year (PoY) Awards.

According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), the main sponsors — Bajaj Pulsar — will provide Rs 400,000 in cash and nine samsung cameras. In return, the NSJF has named the award as Pulsar Player of the Year Awards.

The total sponsorship exceeds Rs 500,000. Shekhar Golcha, Director of the Golcha Organisation, and Niranjan Rajbanshi, President of the NSJF, signed the MoU today. The much awaited sports Awards is slated here at the Rastriya Nachghar on September 10.

Speaking on the occasion, Golcha thanked NSJF for allowing the opportunity to contribute for the development of sports. “It has became extremely necessary to invest in Nepali sports as it can be instrumental in uniting the people,” said Golcha. He also highlighted the continuous support made by his company for sports in Nepal.

NSJF president Rajbanshi expressed delight over the overwhelming support by the company in their endeavour to make the Pulsar PoY Awards a grand success. “We believed that unless we honour sports personalities, it was difficult to push the sports ahead. We are happy that we have been successful so far as it has helped motivate players to excel their performance,” said Rajbanshi. NSJF vice-presidents

Rajendra Gyawali, Roshan Raut and Dhruba Tuladhar, general secretary Hemanta Kafle and secretary Mahesh Acharya were also present on the occasion.

The NSJF awards seven individuals — Male, Female, Youth, Coach, Lifetime Achievement, Special and Popular Player. The NSJF adopts three separate

criteria to decide the winners of the Awards.

The five-member selection committee, headed

by NSJF Secretary Mahesh Acharya, will announced

five nominees for Male, Female, Youth and Coach categories. The selection committee will then declare the best among the five nominees in each category.

However, there will be

no competition in Lifetime Achievement and the Special Awards. The NSJF executive committee finalises the

winners. SMS voting will

decide the winner of the Pulsar Popular PoY Award. National football team and Nepal Police Club striker

Ju Manu Rai won the award last year. The SMS voting will be open from next week, said the organisers.

While Male, Female and Popular PoY award winners will get Rs 25,000 each, Youth, Coach and Special award winners will receive Rs 15,000 apiece. The budget of the event is Rs 1.1 million.