After a disappointing performance at the Rio Olympics a government think tank has come up with a strategy to help the country achieve 50 medals at the 2024 Games. The short-term vision is for 4 to 8 years, while the long-term vision is for 8 to 15 years. In terms of funding, the Aayog said that to do away the process of erratic funding it has recommended that after each Olympics, a fixed 4-year contract is signed between SAI (Sports Authority of India) and sportspersons from Group A sportspersons, keeping in mind the funding required by them up to the next Olympics and other worldwide events in between.
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Announcing the initiative, NITI Aayog tweeted: “NITI Aayog to release “Let’s Play” – An Action Plan for Revitalising Sports in India”.
Harnessing the potential of national sports talent, especially in tribal, rural and coastal areas, recruiting world class coaches and grading them according to performance and strengthening and scaling up existing Sports Authority of India (SAI) training centres are among the other recommendations. These would be Group A, consisting of athletes who have been in the top 50 at the Olympics and/or other global level sports events; Group B – young sportspersons ranked 51-150 at the Olympics, and/or other worldwide level sports events and Group C – national, state and district level championship performers, those who demonstrate the capacity to achieve a medal result at the World or Olympics level (youth or regular).
“To improve the performance of sports and demonstrate medal winning performance, it is important to prioritize ten sports and develop an outcome oriented action plan for each of these sports”.
NITI Aayog also believes that ethical practices and better governance structure are essential to make sports bodies more accountable and has recommended implementation of the Draft National Sports Development Bill to tackle issues such as carrying out anti-doping measures and prevention of fraud of age among others. “Countries like Kenya and Jamaica participate in only two Olympics sports but have managed to get a medal tally of 100 and 78 respectively”, a NITI Aayog official said.
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The bill seeks to fix terms and tenures of the sports administrators.
