The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Sports recently released a report that gave India’s athletic performance on the world stage a harsh review, saying it was “far from satisfactory.” The committee, which is led by Congress Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh, found a number of serious problems in the country’s sports system, with a lot of focus on the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
The data makes it clear that India’s international medal count is strongly related to SAI’s financial condition. It says that the organization is “critically” underfunded and understaffed, and it asks the Sports Ministry to not just provide it more money but also to take a more strategic approach. The committee suggests that the ministry “identify with clinical precision” a few major sports where India has the highest possibility of winning medals and then put most of its resources into developing talent in those areas.
SAI is short on staff and money.
The group, which includes well-known people like cricketer and AAP MP Harbhajan Singh, BJP’s Sambit Patra, and Bansuri Swaraj, said they were “very” worried about the lack of workers at SAI. The report indicates that around 45% of sanctioned roles are currently unfilled, with the deficit being temporarily covered by ad-hoc contractual employment.
The committee said that a big personnel shortage in coaching and scientific positions is “very alarming” and “substantially undermines the coaching of athletes,” which makes it less likely that they will win gold. The committee praised the recent effort to hire more people, but they gave the ministry six months to complete these positions and send in a “Action Taken Report.”
The committee said that even if there have been some good successes in the past few years, the ultimate aim of winning medals at big international events like the Olympics is still out of reach. The study talks about the “painful” fact that a country with 1.4 billion inhabitants didn’t win a single gold medal at the past Olympics. The committee says that this failure shows a “gap or deficiency at the policy level.”
Worries About the Khelo India Scheme
The audit also identified severe issues over the government’s flagship Khelo India initiative. It said with “concern” that money has been taken away from the plan and given to SAI’s National Centres of Excellence in the last two years. The Khelo India project lost a lot of money because of this diversion: Rs 38.79 crores. An extra Rs 122.30 crores of its allocated funds were also sent back to the Consolidated Fund of India.
The committee said this behavior was “unhealthy” and showed “poor estimation, planning, and implementation.” The Khelo India project is approved till March 31, 2026. The committee said that the scheme’s activities and obligations, including as giving money to other government agencies, should be permanently built into SAI’s organizational structure once the scheme ends.
Finally, the study also underlined that Rs 19.50 crore allotted for play-field development under the Khelo India initiative has gone unspent due to a “lack of proposal from eligible entities.” The committee has told the ministry to talk to these groups to better understand and resolve their concerns. They have also asked for an Action Taken Report on the issue.