There are moments in journalism where a single quote says more than an entire report ever could. According to a report by NavBharat Times, Sunita Oraon, a gold medal-winning athlete from Jharkhand, broke down while describing her life today. “I have been sweeping and mopping floors at the Directorate of Sports for the last eight to nine years. It’s very painful. I don’t even get paid properly. There are months when I don’t get paid at all,” she said, her voice breaking as she spoke. She could barely finish her sentence before her words gave way to silence. It’s a difficult image to sit with: an athlete who once represented her state now cleaning the very building meant to celebrate people like her.
The medals she won, and the job she does now
According to the report, Sunita works as a cleaner inside the premises of the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs in Ranchi’s Morabadi area. For this work, she is paid Rs 10,000 a month. She puts in eight hours of labour a day, and it’s only at the end of the month that her salary arrives, money that goes almost entirely toward rent and basic household needs, leaving little behind. The painful irony at the centre of her story is hard to ignore. Sunita was a throwball and volleyball player who won two gold medals, a silver medal, and a few other medals for Jharkhand. She represented the state in competitions held in Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. Yet, despite this record, the state’s sports department never took real notice of her or offered her the kind of support or recognition that her achievements should have earned her.
“I don’t like doing this work, but what else can I do”
Sunita didn’t hide her discomfort with her current situation. “I don’t like mopping floors, but what can I do. If I don’t do something, what will I eat,” she said, as reported by NavBharat Times. She lives on rent and has to pay it every single month, out of a salary that barely stretches to cover it alongside her other basic needs. Her personal circumstances add another difficult layer to her story. Sunita, who lives in the Bijupara area, has lost both her parents. She now lives with her brother and sister-in-law. She is one of four siblings, two brothers and two sisters, and her brother works as a labourer at a brick kiln, meaning he too has little extra to offer in support.
An appeal to the Chief Minister
Toward the end of her conversation, Sunita made a direct appeal to Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, asking for a permanent job. She said she does not want to continue mopping floors for the rest of her life. Instead, she wants a chance to move forward through her own hard work, in a role that lets her live with the dignity her achievements as an athlete deserve. Sunita’s situation, painful as it is, doesn’t stand completely alone. Around the same time her story surfaced, another Jharkhand-based throwball player, Amardeep Kumar, who has won four international gold medals for India, was reported to be driving a cab and selling vegetables on the roadside in Ranchi just to get by, having received neither financial help nor a government job despite his achievements. Both cases point to a similar, uncomfortable pattern: athletes from sports like throwball, which fall outside the Olympic spotlight, often struggle to receive even basic recognition or livelihood security from the state’s sports system, no matter how many medals they bring home.
A story that deserves more than sympathy
Sunita Oraon’s story is not simply a sad headline to scroll past. It’s a reminder that behind every medal tally a state proudly announces, there are real people whose lives don’t always improve alongside those achievements. For someone who once competed and won for her state, spending nearly a decade mopping the floors of the very department meant to support her is a quiet, painful contradiction, one that a simple, secure job could help correct, if the people in a position to act choose to listen.
