Courier company will return money to the chess players: Kiren Rijiju

Chennai, Dec 5 : Union Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju on Saturday said he was upset at the news of Indian chess team members having to pay customs duty to get their FIDE Online Olympiad gold medals.
In a tweet Rijiju said, “I’m very upset with this news. My office has already reached out to the athletes. It was a case of misunderstanding between customs and courier company. The issue has been resolved. The company has acknowledged the slip-up and will return the money to the athlete Srinath Narayanan.” India and Russia shared the gold as they were declared joint winners of the FIDE Online Olympiad.
The victorious Indian chess team consisted of Vidit Santosh Gujrathi (captain), Viswanathan Anand, Pentala Harikrishna, Koneru Humpy, Dronavalli Harika, Aravindh Chithambaram, Nihal Sarin, R Praggnanandhaa, R Vaishali, Bhakti Kulkarni, Divya Deshmukh, Vantika Agarwal and Srinath Narayanan.
Team’s non-playing captain Grandmaster (GM) Srinath Narayanan had told IANS that he had paid customs duty for the 12 medals to DHL and received the medals.
Narayanan also told IANS that he had given a letter to DHL addressed to the Customs Department, Bengaluru, mentioning what the medals were.