Nebico Private Limited gave a tipper truck costing Rs 2.8 million and Maharjan Construction Service Private Limited, a motorbike costing about Rs 200,000 to Deepak amid a special function in Kathmandu on Saturday. [break]
President of Growing Pvt Ltd Raj Bahadur Shahi handed him the key to the tipper truck and proprietor of Maharjan Construction Pvt Ltd Birendra Maharjan, the motorbike key.
Shahi and Maharjan both expressed their happiness on the occasion, stating they felt privileged at the chance to reward a renowned sportsman like Deepak. "We hope the awards will help Deepak run a business in future", said Shahi. "We businessmen can help sports personalities like Deepak and I hope our initiative will encourage other businessmen also", he added.
Maharjan thanked Nebico for awarding Deepak and stated he was happy to be part of the award ceremony. "In a sports career, players only focus on the game and suffer after retirement as they don´t make money and have no idea how to run any business. Nebico has come up with the brilliant idea of supporting Deepak and I also took this chance to hand him this small gift", said Maharjan.
President of Nepal Sports Journalists Forum Niranjan Rajbanshi lauded the awards. "So far as I´m concerned, this is the biggest ever award given to any individual player. Awarding Deepak just before the South Asian Games will boost the Games participants also", said Rajbanshi.
On the same occasion, Deepak announced retirement from his playing career. However, he claimed that he would remain attached to karate either as coach or official. "This award has added to my sense of responsibility and I promise to turn out more talented players than myself in future", Deepak said.
He moved a vote of thanks to Nebico and Maharjan Construction for the awards. "We players never feel secure about our future and because of this insecurity we never earn self-respect", Deepak further said, expressing his pain. "However, I now find that it is not only sports authorities but also the private sector that is watchful over players", he said.
Nebico President Prajwal Karki, Chief Executive Homnath Neupane and Marketing Manager Prakash Karki expressed their delight in rewarding a player like Deepak and assured that they would support Nepali sport in future also.
Deepak has won two gold medals and a bronze in SAG. Deepak won his first SAG gold in the eighth SAG in Kathmandu and the second in the ninth SAG, Pakistan. No other Nepali karateka has had such success in SAG till now.
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