CHENNAI: Just a few days ago, a Parliamentary standing committee on Human Resource Development called for a meeting with the sports ministry, Sports Authority of India and five national sports federations (NSFs).
Officials were piqued and left wondering about its role and scope. Rajya Sabha MP Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, chairperson of the committee, explained the nuances of the panel and its immediate objective — evaluating preparations for the Tokyo Olympics next year.
In an email interview, he said the panel's deliberations and eventual recommendations would aim at empowering all stakeholders.
Excerpts
What will be the focus of the committee? What will its role be?
The Parliamentary standing committee on HRD covers education, women and child development as well as sports and youth affairs ministries. Since we are just a few months away from Olympic Games that are now slated for July-August 2021, we thought it fit to assess the preparedness of our sports establishments in general, and hence in our recently-held meeting we discussed this. Since the topic is enormous, we may continue to discuss this subject for one or two more meetings in the days to come.
How often will you have such review meetings? What will be the procedure to evaluate success?
As clarified, evaluating success is not on our agenda right now. Our agenda is limited to evaluating the preparedness in general and then give some recommendations for immediate action to the ministry when we finalise our report.
Will it focus on the Tokyo Olympics right now and 2024 later or will it focus on the 2024 and 2028 Olympics preparations?
What is of immediate attention is obviously Tokyo Olympics. Later, if the committee so desires, it can assess the preparedness for subsequent Olympic Games too.
How did the meeting with five federations and the sports ministry go?
It went very well. But we would be asking the federations to depose before us once again as we could not complete the discussion. Sports ministry officials also sounded confident. We also interacted with a couple of veteran sports journalists. My assessment is that during the last four years whatever has been done for sports is more than previous years. However, as per the rules, I cannot reveal or comment about what transpired in the meeting as it is confidential. One will have to wait till the submission of our report to the Parliament.
What kind of preparations are you looking at?
As said, our agenda is limited only up to reviewing the preparedness in a comprehensive manner and then recommending measures to be taken to further fine-tune the same. After all, like every Indian, the committee is keen on our contingent to be coming out with flying colours and to ensure this, we are deliberating on the subject.
Will the committee work with the sports ministry or will it work and evaluate athletes' performance independently?
Everything will have to be via the ministry. We are deliberating to help all — sportspersons, federations, Sports Authority of India, Indian Olympic Association and of course ministry officials too. Our recommendations will be primarily aimed at empowering all of them to perform better.
The sports minister has been talking about a top-10 finish by 2028. Do you think this is realistically possible if we don't win medals in three sports (swimming, athletics and gymnastics) in which most medals are at stake?
The sports minister is obviously watching preparations more closely and also monitoring the progress. We need not sit in the judgement of his opinion. We are open to seeking suggestions from all. We will also seek interaction with veteran sportspersons, ex-medal winners and all relevant federations. Our objective is to help the entire sports establishment.
Will you be focusing on grassroots development too?
Just about a year back, the same committee had reviewed grassroots development and therefore the current deliberations are focussed only on immediate needs to further strengthen our preparedness.
How will training methods be evaluated?
As said, that is a longer term agenda. We are just about six to eight months away from the Games and hence we plan to review only immediate needs and recommend last minute measures, if any!