In a bid to scale up the availability and accessibility of sporting facilities in the country, the Government has decided to confer ‘industry’ status to sports infrastructure.
It will enable corporates to avail of concessional finance for creation of sports infrastructure on a par with international standards.
This was disclosed here on Monday by Rajiv Yadav, Secretary, Sports, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, while addressing ‘Turf 2015-16’, the seventh edition Global Sports Summit, organized by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) with the support of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Government of India.
Yadav said that there was a dire need to increase the budgetary support to the Sports Ministry to enable it to enhance the allocation of funds to upgrade up sports development in the country, especially in small towns and district level towns.
The Union Government’s budget for sports was a measly `835 crore, he said, adding that the Government of Gujarat alone had a budget of `350 crore.
He urged the FICCI Sports Committee to make a strong pitch to the Finance Minister to raise the allocation for sports in the ensuing budget.
Yadav also added that planning for sports required enlargement of the catchment area for spotting and grooming talent.
In this context, he said that his ministry was inspired by the sports ‘khel mahakumbh’ organized annually by the Government of Gujarat. It had therefore decided to scale up the National School Games beginning from the fiscal year 2016-17.
‘Cricket now is career option’
Former Indian captain Kapil Dev on Monday doffed his hat at the rise of cricket as a career option for youngsters, saying that parents now encourage their children to take up the game to earn a living.
“Now a cricketer can earn `10 crore for playing 40 days only (in the IPl). It is just fantastic. Cricket is a career option now,” Kapil said during his address at the 7th Global Sports Summit.
“Times have changed and the thought process has changed. Now parents say to their children ‘if you do not want to study you can at least play cricket and become a Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid’,” the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning captain said.
Kapil asked the government to provide the required sports infrastructure, including play fields, and reduce tax on sports goods and equipments.
“The corporate has done their part by way of sponsorship and media have done their part by making sports, especially cricket, big. I think the government will have to do its part by giving sports infrastructure if India wants to produce champions,” he said.
“The government will have to provide the sports infrastructure. Reduce the tax on sports goods and equipments,” he said.
“I heard that shooters have issues on importing their equipment and ammunition. The government will have to make it easy to bring in sports goods and equipments by reducing taxes on these,” he added.
Kapil Dev, former Captain of the Indian cricket team, pointed out that the onus of providing playgrounds in schools rested with the Government and recommended at 40% of the land for schools should be earmarked for play grounds.
“Schools are the places from where talent will come and if there are not enough play fields, how will the country produce world champions. 40 per cent of the premises of all schools should be play fields,” said the former all-rounder.