Match-fixing has to be
weeded out: Uma

The new Sports and Youth Affairs minister Uma Bharti on Wednesday expressed deep concern over the match-fixing scandal and said it is like corruption, which has to be weeded out of cricket.

"Match-fixing is like corruption in any place and has to be weeded out of the game," Bharti, who succeeded Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, said soon after taking charge of the ministry.

"Beyond this I will not make any comment on the issue which has been making headlines across the world," she said, adding she has to talk to officials in her ministry to get a better picture of the issue.

To a question whether match-fixing was a result of slack administration on the part of various authorities, she said: "Administration depends on the minister. He has to see how the sports is being administered."

She said she will hold extensive talks with Dhindsa to know about the present arrangements for administration of various disciplines of sports in the country.

Asked about her priorities as sports minister, she said her first priority is to actively pursue the National Reconstruction Policy through which the talent of the rural youth can be harnessed for national good.

"I will take this policy to villages across India not like a minister but like a social worker, with a view to bring in a revolution," Bharti, who was accompanied by Union Minister Shahnawaz Hussein and BJP youth wing president Shivraj Chauhan, said.

She also expressed concern over the poor performance of India in international events and the Olympics but exuded confidence that with preparations beginning in right earnest, India "will definitely win more medals in the Olympics four years later".

Referring to the Afro-Asian Games, to be held in Delhi in 2001, the sports minister said: "We will be a good host and India will show a much better performance."

On Youth Affairs, she said her ministry would give priority to extending support to the youth from the tribal areas and north-eastern states as past experience has shown that they have excelled in various fields of sports with little support from the government.

"However, politically, my priority would be to see the passage of the Women's Reservation Bill in Parliament. I will not think twice even if I have to take the fight to the streets in this regard and the ministerial post will not come in between," Bharti, for whom this is her second stint in the sports ministry, said.