Do you want to know what is Arjuna Award that your favorite player got recently? If yes, then this post is for you. Know all about this reward, its history, prize amount, and also get to know all the players who have received this award till now.
When a player performs well in any national sport, an award is given to honor him. Similarly, there is also the Arjuna Award, which is given by the Government of India to honor the best players of the year. This award was started in the year 1961.

This award is given only to those players who have consistently performed well at the international level. If you want to know about Arjuna Award, then here you are being provided information about what is Arjuna Award, to whom it is given, the cash amount, and history.
What is Arjuna Award?
The Arjuna Award is the sports honor of the Republic of India. Arjuna Award is one such award, which is mainly given to sportspersons. Apart from this, along with this award, a cash amount of five lakh rupees is also given to the players. Along with a bronze statue of Arjuna and a citation is also given to the players who become the winners.

Arjuna Award is Given to Whom?
Arjuna Award is given to the winning sportspersons who have won the National Games. The player who performs very well in the national game will be honored with this award. Since the introduction of this award, many players have been honored with the award. All the players awarded with this award are winners of national games.
Arjuna Award History
- In 1961 – 19 sportspersons were honored with the Arjuna Award.
- In 1962 – 9 players received this award and after that, the award was given to 7 players for three years.
- In 1965- Arjuna Award was presented to Everest winning team.
- About 15 sportspersons are honored with this award every year.
Arjuna Award Recipients in Archery
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1981 |
Krishna Das |
1989 |
Shyam Lal Meena |
1991 |
Limba Ram |
1992 |
Sanjeeva Kumar Singh |
2005 |
Dola Banerjee |
2005 |
Tarundeep Rai |
2006 |
Jayanta Talukdar |
2009 |
Mangal Singh Champia |
2011 |
Rahul Banerjee |
2012 |
Deepika Kumari |
2012 |
Bombayla Devi Laishram |
2013 |
Chekrovolu Swuro |
2014 |
Abhishek Verma |
2015 |
Sandeep Kumar |
2016 |
Rajat Chauhan |
2017 |
V. J. Sureka |
2020 |
Atanu Das |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Athletics
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Gurbachan Singh Randhawa |
1962 |
Tarlok Singh |
1963 |
Stephie D’Souza |
1964 |
Makhan Singh |
1965 |
Kenneth Powell |
1966 |
Ajmer Singh |
1966 |
Bhogeswar Baruah |
1967 |
Praveen Kumar |
1967 |
Bhim Singh |
1968 |
Joginder Singh |
1968 |
Manjit Walia |
1969 |
Harnek Singh |
1970 |
Mohinder Singh Gill |
1971 |
Edward Sequeira |
1972 |
Vijay Singh Chauhan |
1973 |
Sriram Singh |
1974 |
T. C. Yohannan |
1974 |
Shivnath Singh |
1975 |
Hari Chand |
1975 |
V. Anusuya Bai |
1976 |
Bahadur Singh |
1976 |
Geeta Zutshi |
1977-78 |
Satish Kumar (athlete) |
1978-79 |
Suresh Babu |
1978-79 |
Angel Mary Joseph |
1979-80 |
Ramaswamy Gnanasekaran |
1980-81 |
Gopal Saini |
1981 |
Sabir Ali |
1982 |
Charles Borromeo |
1982 |
Chand Ram |
1982 |
M. D. Valsamma |
1983 |
Suresh Yadav |
1983 |
P T Usha |
1984 |
Prince |
1984 |
Shiny Abraham |
1985 |
Raghubir Singh Bal |
1985 |
Asha Agarwal |
1985 |
Adille Sumariwala |
1986 |
Suman Rawat |
1987 |
Balwinder Singh |
1987 |
Vandana Rao |
1987 |
Bagicha Singh |
1987 |
Vandana Shanbagh |
1988 |
Ashwini Nachappa |
1989 |
Mercy Kuttan |
1990 |
Deena Ram |
1992 |
Bahadur Prasad |
1993 |
K. Saramma |
1994 |
Rosa Kutty |
1995 |
Shakti Singh |
1995 |
Jyotirmoyee Sikdar |
1995 |
Malathi Krishnamurthy Hallala (Para Athlete) |
1996 |
Kalegowda (Mercury Athlete) |
1996 |
Ajit Bhaduria |
1996 |
Padmini Thomas |
1997 |
M. Mahadeva (Mercury Athlete) |
1997 |
Reeth Abraham |
1998 |
Sri Chand Ram |
1998 |
Neelam Jaswant Singh |
1998 |
S. D. Eshan |
1998 |
Rachita Mistry |
1998 |
Paramjit Singh |
1999 |
Gulab Chand |
1999 |
G. Venkatarawanappa (Para Athlete) |
1999 |
Gurmeet Kaur |
1999 |
Praduman Singh |
1999 |
Sunita Rani |
2000 |
K. M. Beenamol |
2000 |
Milkha Singh |
2000 |
Yadvendra Vashisht (Para Athlete) |
2000 |
Joginder Singh Bedi (Para Athlete for Lifetime Contribution) |
2001 |
K. R. Shankar Lauer (Mercury Athlete) |
2002 |
Anju Bobby George |
2002 |
Saraswati Shah |
2003 |
Soma Biswas |
2003 |
Madhuri Saxena |
2004 |
Anil Kumar |
2004 |
J. J. Shobha |
2004 |
Devendra Jhajharia (Mercury Athlete) |
2005 |
Manjeet Kaur |
2006 |
K. M. Binu |
2007 |
Chitra Soman |
2009 |
Sinimole Paulose |
2010 |
Joseph Abraham (Athletics) |
2010 |
Krishna Poonia |
2011 |
Vikas Gowda |
2011 |
Preeja Sreedharan |
2012 |
Sudha Singh |
2012 |
Kavita Raut |
2012 |
Deepa Mallik (Mercury Athlete) |
2012 |
Ramkaran Singh (Para Athlete) |
2013 |
Amit Kumar Saroha |
2014 |
Tintu Luka |
2015 |
MR Poovamma |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Badminton
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Nandu Natekar |
1962 |
Meena Shah |
1965 |
Dinesh Khanna |
1967 |
Suresh Goel |
1969 |
Dipu Ghosh |
1970 |
Damayanti Tambay |
1971 |
Sobha Murthy |
1972 |
Prakash Padukone |
1974 |
Raman Ghosh |
1975 |
Devinder Ahuja |
1976 |
Ami Ghia |
1977-78 |
Kanwal Thakar Singh |
1980-81 |
Syed Modi |
1982 |
Partho Ganguli |
1982 |
Madhumita Bisht |
1991 |
Rajeev Bagga |
1999 |
Pullela Gopichand |
2000 |
George Thomas |
2002 |
Ramesh Tikaram (Physically Challenged) |
2003 |
Madasu Srinivasa Rao (Physically Challenged) |
2004 |
Abhinn Shyam Gupta |
2005 |
Aparna Popat |
2006 |
Chetan Anand |
2006 |
Rohit Bahker (Physically Challenged) |
2008 |
Anoop Sridhar |
2009 |
Saina Nehwal |
2011 |
Jwala Gutta |
2012 |
Ashwini Ponnappa |
2012 |
Parupalli Kashyap |
2013 |
PV Sindhu |
2014 |
V. Diju |
2015 |
Srikanth Kidambi |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Basketball
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Sarbjit Singh |
1967 |
Khushi Ram |
1968 |
Gurdial Singh |
1969 |
Hari Dutt |
1970 |
Gulam Abbas Moontasir |
1971 |
M. M. Singh |
1973 |
Surendra Kumar Kataria |
1974 |
Anil Kumar Punj |
1975 |
Hanuman Singh |
1977–1978 |
T. Vijayaraghava |
1979–1980 |
Om Prakash |
1982 |
Ajmer Singh |
1983 |
Suman Sharma |
1983 |
Radhey Shyam |
1999 |
Sajjan Singh Cheema |
2001 |
Parminder Singh |
2002 |
Aparna Ghosh |
2003 |
Ram Kumar |
2014 |
Geethu Anna Jose |
2017 |
Prashanti Singh |
2020 |
Vishesh Bhriguvanshi |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Billiards & Snooker
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1962 |
Wilson Jones |
1970 |
Michael Ferreira |
1972 |
Satish Kumar Mohan |
1973 |
Shyam Shroff |
1978–1979 |
Arvind Savur |
1983 |
Subhash Agarwal |
1984 |
Omprakash Agarwal |
1985 |
Geet Sethi |
1989 |
Yasin Merchant |
1997 |
Ashok Harishankar Shandilya |
2001 |
Devender Sreekant Joshi |
2002 |
Alok Kumar |
2003 |
Pankaj Advani |
2005 |
Anuja Thakur |
2012 |
Aditya Mehta |
2013 |
Rupesh Shah |
2016 |
Saurav Kothari |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Boxing
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Buddy D’Souza |
1962 |
Padam Badadur Mal |
1966 |
Hawa Singh |
1968 |
Dennis Swamy |
1971 |
Muniswamy Venu |
1972 |
Chandraya Narayanan |
1973 |
Mehtab Singh |
1977-78 |
B.S. Thapa |
1978-79 |
C. C. Machaiah |
1979-80 |
B. Singh |
1980-81 |
Issac Amaldas |
1981 |
G. Manoharan |
1982 |
Kaur Singh |
1983 |
Jaslal Pradhan |
1986 |
JaiPal Singh |
1987 |
Seeva Jayaram |
1989 |
Gopal Dewang |
1991 |
DS Yadav |
1992 |
Rajendra Prasad |
1993 |
Manoj Pingale |
1993 |
Mukund Killekar |
1995 |
V. Devarajan |
1996 |
Rajkumar Sangwan |
1998 |
Dingko Singh |
1999 |
Gurcharan Singh |
1999 |
Jitender Kumar |
2002 |
Mohammed Ali Qamar |
2003 |
Mangte Chungneijang Mary Kom |
2005 |
Akhil Kumar |
2006 |
Vijender Kumar |
2008 |
Varghese Johnson |
2009 |
L. Sarita Devi |
2010 |
Dinesh Kumar |
2011 |
Suranjoy Singh |
2012 |
Vikas Krishna |
2013 |
Kavita Chahal |
2014 |
Manoj Kumar |
2015 |
Mandeep Jangra |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Carrom
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1996 |
Anthony Maria Irudayam |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Chess
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Manuel Aaron |
1980-81 |
Rohini Khadilkar |
1983 |
Dibyendu Barua |
1984 |
Praveen Thipsay |
1985 |
Viswanathan Anand |
1987 |
DV Prasad |
1987 |
Bhagyashree Thipsay |
1990 |
Anupama Gokhale |
2000 |
Subbaraman Vijayalakshmi |
2002 |
Krishnan Sasikiran |
2003 |
Koneru Humpy |
2005 |
Surya Shekhar Ganguly |
2006 |
Pentyala Harikrishna |
2008 |
Dronavalli Harika |
2009 |
Tanya Sachdev |
2010 |
Parimarjan Negi |
2013 |
Abhijeet Gupta |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Cricket
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
Salim Durani |
1964 |
Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi |
1965 |
Vijay Manjrekar |
1966 |
Chandu Borde |
1967 |
Ajit Wadekar |
1968 |
EAS Prasanna |
1969 |
Bishan Singh Bedi |
1970 |
Dilip Sardesai |
1971 |
Srinivasaraghavan Venkataraghavan |
1972 |
Eknath Solkar |
1972 |
BS Chandrashekhar |
1975 |
Sunil Gavaskar |
1976 |
Shantha Rangaswamy |
1977-78 |
Gundappa Vishwanath |
1979-80 |
Kapil Dev Nikhanj |
1980-81 |
Chetan Chauhan |
1980-81 |
Saeed Kirmani |
1981 |
Dilip Vengsarkar |
1982 |
Mohinder Amarnath |
1983 |
Diana Edulji |
1984 |
Ravi Shastri |
1985 |
Shubhangi Kulkarni |
1986 |
Mohammad Azharuddin |
1986 |
Sandhya Aggarwal |
1989 |
Madan Lal |
1993 |
Manoj Prabhakar |
1993 |
Kiran More |
1994 |
Sachin Tendulkar |
1995 |
Anil Kumble |
1996 |
Javagal Srinath |
1997 |
Ajay Jadeja |
1997 |
Sourav Ganguly |
1998 |
Rahul Dravid |
1998 |
Nayan Mongia |
2000 |
Venkatesh Prasad |
2001 |
VVS Laxman |
2002 |
Virender Sehwag |
2003 |
Harbhajan Singh |
2003 |
Mithali Raj |
2005 |
Anju Jain |
2006 |
Anjum Chopra |
2009 |
Gautam Gambhir |
2010 |
Jhulan Goswami |
2011 |
Zaheer Khan |
2012 |
Yuvraj Singh |
2013 |
Virat Kohli |
2014 |
Ravichandran Ashwin |
2015 |
Rohit Sharma |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Cycling
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1975 |
Amar Singh |
1978-79 |
Minati Mahapatra |
1983 |
Armin R. Arthan |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Equestrian
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1973 |
Dafadar Khan M. Khan |
1976 |
Lt. Col. HS Sodhi |
1982 |
Maj. R. Singh Brar |
1982 |
Raghubir Singh (Equestrian) |
1984 |
Capt. G. Mohd. Mine |
1987 |
Maj. JS Ahluwalia |
1991 |
Capt. Adhiraj Singh |
2003 |
Capt. Rajesh Pattu |
2003 |
Capt. Rajesh Pattu |
Arjuna Award Recipients in Football
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
PK Banerjee |
1962 |
Tulsidas Balaram |
1963 |
Chuni Goswami |
1964 |
Jarnail Singh |
1965 |
Arun Lal Ghosh |
1966 |
Yusuf Khan |
1967 |
Peter Thangaraj |
1969 |
Inder Singh |
1970 |
Syed Naimuddin |
1971 |
CP Singh |
1973 |
Magan Singh |
1978 |
Gurdev Singh Gill |
1979 |
Prasun Banerjee |
1980 |
Muhammad Habib |
1981 |
Sudhir Karmakar |
1983 |
Shanti Mallick |
1989 |
S. Bhattacharjee |
1997 |
Brahmanand Sankhwalkar |
1998 |
Baichung Bhutia |
2002 |
Bruno Coutinho |
2003 |
IM Vijayan |
2010 |
Deepak Kumar Mandal |
2011 |
Sunil Chhetri |
Arjuna Award Recepients in Golf
Year |
Name of the recipient |
1961 |
PG Sethi |
1963 |
AS owner |
1967 |
RK Pitambar |
1972 |
Anjali N Desai |
1973 |
Vikramjit Singh |
1977 |
Sita Rawlley |
1982 |
Lakshman Singh |
1987 |
Nonita Lal |
1991 |
Ali Sher |
1999 |
Chiranjeev Milkha Singh (Jeev Milkha Singh) |
2002 |
Shiv Kapoor |
2004 |
Jyotinder Singh Randhawa (Jyoti Randhawa) |
2007 |
Arjun Atwal |
2013 |
Gagan Jeet Bhullar |
2014 |
Anirban Lahiri |
2017 |
Shiv Chawrasia |
2018 |
Shubhankar Sharma |
2020 |
Aditi Ashok |
Conclusion
The Arjuna Award is the greatest honor that the sportspersons are given on the basis of their performance in the National Games. With the award, the winners will also receive a cash amount of Rs. 5 lakh. That was all about this post. If you have any doubts related to this post, then you can feel free to ask us in the comments section. Keep visiting Janta Yojana for more useful guides.