patna altogether 294 national and nine international level athletes from state were honoured at khel samman samaroh 2017 jointly organised by the state youth art and culture department and bihar state sports authority at pataliputra sports complex on tuesday addressing the function deputy cm sushil kumar modi said the government has planned several measures to improve sports facilities in the state and support the athletes the budget for khel samman samaroh has been increased from rs 30 lakh earlier to rs 2 crore now modi said he added when jharkhand and bihar were one state most of the athletes were from jharkhand region as they used to receive financial help from the industrialists there once the two states separated in november 2000 the number of athletes that bihar was producing lessened considerably modi said adding the government has allotted 91 acres of land for construction of an international cricket stadium and a sports academy at rajgir a task force has been set up to suggest road map for development of sports in the state it will submit its report within three months modi said he added of the 276 proposed outdoor stadiums 100 have already been constructed renovation of the moinul haq stadium in patna is also on the cards he said we plan to identify children at a young age for certain sports and train them accordingly there is a need to create a balance between sports and education modi addedsanjay sinha an official of youth art and culture department said prize money for sportspersons of bihar is now at par with other states we are trying to improve quality of food for athletes he added