The Union Sports Minister, Vijay Goel, addressed a congregation of top women athletes of the country on International Women’s Day at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium and assured them equality of right and all support.
While addressing the athletes during a conference on ‘Women and Sports in India’, the Sports Minister announced that a high level committee would be constituted to resolve the grievances and complaints of women sports persons.
The committee, expected to be all women, will function under the chairmanship of Joint Secretary (Sports), and will comprise of athletes, an advocate, senior officers of the Sports Ministry and sports journalists.
The minister emphasised that his ministry followed a “zero tolerance policy on sexual harassment’’. The discussion, aimed towards encouraging more women to take up sports, was focused on creating safe space for girl athletes and women coaches, inclusion of gender sensitisation modules in coach training, women representation in sports institutions, federations and other sports bodies and gender parity in terms of support to women athletes.
The conference was attended by some of the leading women sportspersons of the country from various disciplines like Shiny Wilson, Kunjarani Devi, Indu Puri, Prerna Bhambri, Anuja Tere, Annu Raj Singh, Sita Gussain, Hansa Sharma, Sunita Sharma and Sunaina Singh among others.
It was pointed out that the Sports Authority of India (SAI) had provided training for 807 women athletes out of a total of 1862 through its Special Area Games (SAG) scheme.
The minister stressed that the ministry provided equal assistance and incentives to both male and female athletes and there was no gender discrimination for training etc.
Comments
SHARE