The 2020 sports budget is aimed at giving a boost to India’s ambitions at the international level. According to Union Sports Secretary Radhey Shyam Julaniya, “The budget meets our present needs and future aspirations.
“After a 60% increase over last year, the big increase would come in 2021-22, as there is a time gap between talent identification and hiring of high performance coaches for increased number of trainee athletes.”
A day after the budget, Julaniya told Sportstar , “The (Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports) expenditure last year was ₹1723.01 crore. This year the budget is ₹2776.92 crore. Thus, there is an increase of more than 60% (₹1053.91 crore) compared to the previous year.”
Julaniya emphasised, “We have cleared past liabilities this year and rationalised the budget accounting with one budget head for one program/activity. All training programs now would be funded under Khelo India only. This has reduced allocation for NSFs (National Sports Federations) and SAI (Sports Authority of India).
“Identification of talent to increase the number of athletes for training takes time. Similarly, getting high performance coaches and trainers take time. We aim to accelerate with quality. Our focus is to train larger number of athletes with high quality so as to increase use of available infrastructure. After 60% increase over last year, another jump would take place now after a year.”
On the Ministry’s plans, he added, “We’re developing a National Centre of Excellence for SAI regional centres.
“The capacity will be minimum 10,000 athletes who will get high performance training in 15 disciplines. The focus is to use available infrastructure. This infrastructure should be used three to four times more than now. These disciplines have been identified keeping in mind the 2024 and 2028 Olympics.”
Denying that there was a drop in funds, Julaniya said, “Not at all. On the contrary we are restructuring SAI which came into existence before 1984.
“Things have changed, especially in terms of sports science and number of events. We are creating 50 positions for High Performance Managers and 100 chief coaches.
“Best coaches will be hired from within the country or outside. Training quality will improve because we are concentrating on regular training and not the camps. There is no scarcity of funds but efficient utilisation of resources and facilities is the focus.”
Julaniya also highlighted the role Khelo India would play. “We are restructuring Khelo India too so that we can use facilities in the States for regular competitions. In Bhopal, we will concentrate on developing facilities in disciplines other than shooting and rowing.
“In Bhubaneswar, we won’t be investing in hockey infrastructure. We have close to 15000 athletes in SAI, of which 10000 are getting residential training. We want quality training for them. We will attach them with schools. They will get admission in schools in sports quotas.
“These schools will have residential facilities and this will be done at the district level to ensure that the best athletes compete against the best athletes. Sports should also be organised at the State level in one particular month at all levels so that the academic schedule of the athletes is not disturbed.”
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