Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore: 'We have to improve the quality of coaching'

The Governing Body decided to wave off the charges for the stadium and at the instance of Union Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore supported the idea of extending this facility to other federations organising international events.

Rathore (middle) spelt out various steps being taken to address various issues plaguing sport in India.

The 51st Governing Body Meeting of the Sports Authority of India (SAI) on Tuesday decided to wave off the booking charges from the organisers of the Women's World Boxing Championship.

The championship is to be held at the Indira Gandhi Sports Complex, here, from November 8 to 26. The Boxing Federation of India was reportedly keen to associate Khelo India, SAI, Union Sports Ministry as an event partner. The Governing Body decided to wave off the charges for the stadium and at the instance of Union Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore supported the idea of extending this facility to other federations organising international events.

The Meeting took some far-reaching decisions in its attempt to bring in more professionalism and transparency in the administrative setup and also utilisation of the stadia. Rathore spelt out various steps being taken to address various issues plaguing sport in India.

“The emphasis should be on creating the finest sporting infrastructure for our young athletes. Each discipline from out priority Olympic list should have a model arena. You give them the best and you will surely reap the best. We should strive to create general awareness about fitness. The idea is to find the next champion,” he said.

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Rathore also highlighted the important role played by coaches. “We have to improve the quality of coaching. Coaches have a lot of significance, so the quality of coaching needs to be improved. Whichever coaches are performing better, we need to incentivise their work, so that we don't lose these top coaches to any other institutions. We have taken the decision to improve the quality of coaching and to ensure that those who are doing well are given proper incentives,” he added.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium will undergo a restructuring based on the Public Private Partnership (PPP) model. It was noted that the restructuring was an overreaching objective to promote holistic development of the stadia based on an integral economic base that promotes sports, supporting participation and excellence.

“It can be a model for restructuring other stadia. It has the best potential for becoming the hub of sporting activity. It will provide the best of facilities free of cost. It is generally the JNS is much underutilised. We will float a global tender and appoint a Transactional Advisor to guide us,” SAI Director General Neelam Kapur said.