Sports Ministry keen to develop 1,000 Khelo India centres by 2024

The Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports has time and again spoken about making the country a sporting powerhouse. To achieve the feat, the Sports Ministry has prepared a full-proof vision that will help budding youngsters find the right platform to showcase their talent.

In fact, Kiren Rijiju — the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports — has already said that he wants to see India among the top ten nations in terms of medal tally in the 2028 Olympics. In the 13-page document, accessed by ANI, everything has been explained as to how the country will not only look to develop a large number of sporting facilities, but also improve the present infrastructure further. While the document speaks about ensuring the presence of one lakh Fit India Clubs by December 2021, the plan also says that the National Sports University needs to be fully operational by 2023-24. The roadmap also says that the National Centre for Sports Coaching needs to be operational by 2023-24.

“The culture of sports gets its roots from early childhood. The schools have to play a very active role if the sports culture is to spread quickly. Sports is required to become a part of the regular curriculum both in the school as well as in the teacher training institutes. A mechanism for holding sports competitions right from the panchayats to the State level needs to be created to establish an institutional set up for early scouting and nurturing of sporting talent. This department will initiate several initiatives in conjunction with different Departments/Ministries of the Central and State Governments,” states the document.

From extracurricular to the regular curriculum, there needs to be a setting up of National Sports Education Board, adoption of curriculum and launch of the curriculum. Fitness and basic sports need to become a regular subject for teacher training and the competitions need to be held at every level including the national and district level, as per the document prepared.

The vision further states that a total of 30,000 boys and girls need to be scouted across sporting talents and 1,000 Khelo India centres need to be developed by 2024.