United Front plans a Rs 1 billion national sports development fund

Syed Firadus Ashraf in New Delhi

The central government is planning a national sports development fund to promote sports in India.

The government will initially contribute Rs one billion to the corpus, and is planning to make it compulsory for all corporate houses to contribute one per cent of their annual net profits.

A meeting in this regard is likely between all state sports ministers and Human Resource Development Minister S R Bommai next month.

HRD ministry sources said this follows from the meeting all state sports ministers had with Bommai on February 12 to report the situation of sports in their states.

At the upcoming meeting it will be decided if sports should be looked into both by the state and central governments. Sports, so far a state subject, draws just 0.008 per cent of the country's budgetary allocation.

Currently it does not even merit a separate ministry, coming under the HRD ministry within the ministry of state for youth affairs and sports. Besides state governments, there are 56 federations for every important sport. But most of these are at least partly dependent on funding from the government or the corporate sector.

After the miserable performance in the 1996 Olympics, Bommai had said that India should follow in the footsteps of China which did not play in Olympics for 12 years as they were preparing their team.

While a separate ministry may not be discussed, the government may insist that every new school have a sports field.

In 1984 the government had formed a national sports policy to raise the standard of sports in the country. The National Education Policy of 1986 incorporated the objectives of the National Sports Policy, stressing the development of sports along with education in schools.

But, admitted an HRD official, the lofty the goals and objectives laid down in the policy statement have not been realised. He said the National Sports Policy will be reformulated.