CHENNAI: THE sports ministry has given away roughly Rs 453.58 crore to the various National Sports Federations (NSFs) under the ‘scheme of Assistance to NSFs’ since the beginning of the 2018-19 financial year. This was revealed by Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju in his reply to an unstarred question in Lok Sabha last Thursday. This money has been distributed broadly under six categories. “Funds are provided for national championships, international tournaments in India, participation in international tournaments abroad, coaching camps, purchase of equipments and hiring of foreign coaches etc,” Rijiju said.
Of that figure, Rs 188.44 crore have been spent on the above-mentioned activities in the ongoing financial year, while in 2018-19, the government spent around Rs 269.09 crore. In the annexure provided by the ministry giving a break-up of how much each sport was given, a few things jump out. Athletics and boxing seem to have benefited the most since April 1, 2018. Out of the Rs 453.58 crore, these two sports have alone accounted for Rs 114.05 crore. That should hardly come as a surprise as most of the A-listers in athletics were outside India in camps or taking part in meets across Europe. This time it was for nine months. A number of foreign coaches also will have contributed to the money spent towards them. Though the number of athletes benefiting from the scheme is more than boxing, yet the latter ended up receiving Rs 36 crore — which is the highest among all disciplines in 2018-2019.
For example, the 4x400m relay teams were based in Poland and Czech Republic for close to five months this year as they were preparing for the World Championships and before that they were in Turkey preparing for the Asian Championships. What’s interesting is that the money spent on athletics has not been proportional to the amount of medals won in international meets. At the World Championships for example, the relay teams returned a blank. This wasn’t necessarily the case in boxing where athletes won historic worlds medals. Shooting was another sport that saw a lot of funds — Rs 46.42 crore — since April 2018. With India hosting World Cups apart from athletes regularly participating in high-class events, the figure wasn’t a surprise. And athletes also used the stage to qualify for the Olympics.
At the other end, both equestrian and taekwondo have received zero assistance in the current financial year. Interestingly, the equestrian federation got an extension on their recognition recently until March 31. However, in 2018-19 it received Rs 90.61 lakh. Taekwondo has been banned by the ministry and the IOA. Para sports has got more funding this year compared to last year. This year they got Rs 6.19 crore until now compared to Rs 4.07 crore in 18-19.