Sports Minister urges private players to pitch in
With Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Sarbananda Sonowal renewing his request to the private sector for sports sponsporships and financial support, it is hoped that India's corporate houses will loosen their purse strings sooner than later. Though there is growing support from private players in the sports sector, there is still a long way to go. Indian sports (except cricket) need an across-the-board institutional upgrade.
Yes, the Government has a major role to play here — providing the initial impetus, ensuring that the laws and systems allows for easy investments in sporting activities, monitoring corruption in sporting bodies etc — but it cannot carry do a large-scale upgrade all by itself. The private sector has to take on a leadership. In this context, a section of the Memorandum of Association of Steel Plants Sports Board (established in 1960 by the Steel Authority of India limited and the then Tata Iron and Steel Company limited) that Mr Sonowal himself often quotes, makes for an interesting read.
The preamble states that “with the abolition of Princely States which hitherto used to patronise sports in the country, a void has been created and in order to fill this void, it is essential that the industries come forward to patronise sports in the country”. Such patronage does not even have to be for purely charitable purposes. After all, the sports industry generates billions of dollars in revenue every year and it is a profit-making venture. In India, private players only have to find their niche and make wise investments, be they at the individual level in rising sports-stars or at the institutional level in setting up sports stadiums and sporting leagues.
A good place to start is investing the corporate social responsibility fund in sporting activities, as Minister Sonowal has often suggested. The Government has already tweaked some of the rules and regulations to make this process easier. For example, the Indian Companies Act, 2009, has been revised to bring sports promotion schemes under the ambit of CSR activities. Also, the Rashtriya Khel Protsahan Puruskar has been introduced to reward corporates and other outfits that contribute towards the development of sports in this country.
And that's not all. To ensure that the new funding that will hopefully be coming into the Indian sports industry is effectively used and not wasted haphazard projects, the Government has already identified seven disciplines that it believes has the most medal prospects for the Olympic Games in 2016 and 2010, as well as the Commonwealth & Asian Games in 2018. These disciplines are archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, shooting, weightlifting and wrestling. India has been doing well in these fields, having won an impressive bunch of medals in recent years, and there is enough reason to hope, that with a little bit of support, sportspersons from these disciplines can make long-lasting mark at the global level.