“If it
is important to you, you will find a way. If not you will find an excuse”—this
statement seems to reflect the perspective of Indian Government when it comes
to national sports. Our present Sports Minister Sarbananda Sanowal(2014-) of
the Bharatiya Janata Party after taking charge of his post put front his vision
to make his ministry “important and visible”. When quizzed further about his
priorities, he said, “Some other day I will talk about my future plan and
action. I will discuss matters with sports experts and sports personalities of
the country to carry out my functions and responsibilities effectively.”
Our
question to Mr.Khel Mantri is how far has he achieved his vision to make sports
significant in the last 2 two years? Where does Indian Sports stand currently
in the International Level?
Reality
Check! The only sports promoted and developed the most in India since
Independence, is cricket.
It is
pathetic, when World Boxing Champion, like, Mary Kom was unknown to the nation
until she won the Olympics. Even then, her stardom was too short-lived and she
was not a familiar face of Sports to the nation. It was the Biopic movie (Mary
Kom: 2015) enacted by Priyanka Chopra that brought her into the lime light. As
she confessed, before the release of the movie , the western world did not
properly acknowledge her as an Indian. Quoting her, “If people like it(film)
then it could happen. Promotion is necessary. Just like Kabbadi and Football. The
country is getting medals in individual sports like archery, weight-lifting,
wrestling and with promotion more medals can come in future.
Leave
alone the endeavor to enhance the psychological and mental well-being of
sportsmen, which is important, government’s negligence to sports is evident
from meager budget of sports federation, abysmal sports infrastructure, hostel
facilities of SAI(Sports Authority of India), training camps etc.
The
Sports Federations in other countries are multi-stakeholder in nature. On the
contrary, in India these institutions are under the State control. Most of the
training centers in India and sports federations are managed by inefficient and
unskilled politicians and bureaucrats, who care about money and not medals.
This results in nil innovations in the field.
“The
subject ‘Sports’ does not figure in the Concurrent list of the Constitution of
India therefore, it is only the State Legislature that is competent to
legislate in relation to any matter concerning sports. It was also conceded
that any issue concerning NSF can only be raised by the concerned officer
appointed by the concerned State Government under which the society is
registered. It was conceded that even the guidelines for assistance for NSF
comes under the subject ‘Sports’ in the State List, therefore the Union
Government does not have any mandate to frame rules/ legislate on any matter
related to Sports. Since the subject Sports does not come under the Union List,
the Sports bodies cannot participate in any manner in “International Conference
/ Association”.
-these
Laws themselves portray the ignorance of Sports by the Government and the
Legislature.
No comments:
Post a Comment