Shooting coaches agree to sign contracts with SAI

New Delhi: The protesting shooting coaches today agreed to sign the contracts, which was mandatory for them to get salaries on monthly basis, after their meeting with the NRAI and SAI officials here. Ending the tiff over pay packages, the Indian coaches for the senior and junior teams today met National Rifles Association of India (NRAI) and Sports Authority of India officials here at the Tughlaqabad shooting range and gave their consent to sign the contract before February 1 deadline issued by the SAI. Out of the 31 coaches employed by the NRAI, 25 attended the meeting including Jaspal Rana, who is the chief coach of the junior pistol team, and an agitating Deepali Deshpande, the chief rifle coach of the junior team, who had put in her papers in protest. "We had a fruitful meeting with the coaches and they have agreed to sign the contract with the SAI. All the coaches will sign an individual contract with the SAI normally for a period of one year commencing February 1. After that, they will start getting salaries on a monthly basis," NRAI president Raninder Singh told PTI. "The meeting was attended by SAI Teams` Division head Rajinder Singh, NRAI officials and 25 coaches. The issue has been amicably resolved," he added. The chief coaches will be paid Rs 50,000, while the other coaches on the panel will get Rs 30,000 per month. The controversy started when the SAI released amounts of coaches on the NRAI panel lower than what they were promised as remuneration for the past 15 months. All the coaches had been working without pay for that duration. It has been learnt that some of them got as little as Rs 65,000 for a 15-month period when SAI finally decided to pay them only last month. Raninder informed that shooters would be paid on a pro-rata basis till January 31, 2014. "Whatever amount SAI has released to the coaches did not make for their full salary but the rest will be taken care by the federation. We will pay the coaches their remaining amount till January 31, 2014." He said that Olympian Deshpande has also decided not to press for her resignation. SAI had issued a circular to all National Sports Federations on March 13 last year informing them that the coaches employed by them will have to sign the contract with SAI in order to receive salaries on monthly basis. Those, who had not signed as was the case with NRAI, they would continue to receive their dues on pro-rata basis.