Parliamentary panel raises concern on SAI’s financial health

young new delhi: Sports authorization of republic of india (SAI) is “critically” under-funded and under-staffed, the parliamentary standing citizens committee on sports has said, recommending a slew of measures to the union sports ministry. The panel, headed by Congress’ Rajya Sabha MP Digvijaya Singh, presented a 40-page report to the upper house on Wednesday.

The report expresses concern over India’s poor returns at the Olympics. “It is extremely painful that we being a country of approximately 1.4 billion population could not win even a single gold medal in the last Olympics in 2024 and most of the Olympics before that. The Committee feels that there is some gap or deficiency at the policy level in this regard,” it said. It calls for broad-based talent spotting and holding more age-group domestic competitions.

The committee also urged the sports ministry to adopt a targetted approach towards those sports in which India is likely to win more medals.

“Countries like Australia, Cuba, Kenya, China, USA are powerhouses in select sports like swimming, boxing, cross country, badminton, table tennis, and track & field events respectively. Each of these countries participates in a few targeted sporting events and win most of the medals in such events. The committee feels that it is worth emulating this model and recommends the ministry to take the concentrated approach in picking up the sports as such in which we have the potential and talent,” it said.

Further, the parliamentary panel observed a “substantial staff crunch in coaching and scientific cadres” in SAI and urged the body to fill up vacant posts.

“...about 45 per cent of sanctioned posts in the Authority are presently lying vacant. The fact that these shortfalls in staff are being managed through contractual appointment may at best be only an ad hoc arrangement,” the report stated while commending to complete the recruitment in six months and furnish an Action Taken Report.

The committee noted that during the last two financial years, the funds for Khelo India Scheme have been diverted to National Centres of Excellence (NCOEs) of SAI.

“This diversion has denied precious funds of ₹38.79 crores to the Khelo India Scheme. This is more alarming as ₹122.30 crore of allocated funds under this scheme has also been returned to the Consolidated Fund of India,” it observed.

“...such practice of diversion of funds from one central scheme to another is not a healthy one as it reflects poor estimation, planning and implementation on the part of a Central Scheme.”

The report also said that an amount of ₹19.50 crore was allocated for play-field development under the Khelo India Scheme but has not been spent “due to lack of proposal from eligible entities”

---

---