Par Panel slams SAI for not roping in sportspersons

A Parliamentary Standing Committee has come down hard on the Sports Authority of India for continuing with its bureaucratic functioning by appointing people without sports background at key positions.

In its 270th report, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development expressed surprise at the fact that sportspersons were not being represented at any level in SAI’s functioning even after another similar panel had asked for the restructuring of the “unwieldy and monolithic bureaucratic organisation” way back in 1995. The Committee also said that “a <g data-gr-id="29">full time</g> Chairman-cum-managing Director with good sports background should be appointed as the Director-General of SAI.”

“...there has been no change in the situation till now. SAI continues to function in the same bureaucratic manner. Surprisingly, sportspersons were not being represented at any level in the functioning of SAI even on Friday. Many of the sports institutes are headed or managed by persons not having any sports background. The Committee feels that the situation requires immediate corrective steps,” the report, which was tabled in the Parliament recently, said.

“Involvement of sportspersons in the functioning of SAI could go a long way in creating good infrastructure and sports facilities at every level as the sportspersons are familiar with the kind of facilities, infrastructure, coaching, diet, training and support service required for sportspersons,” said the report of the Committee headed by Satyanarayan Jatiya. The Committee further noted that “each one of the nine regional centres of SAI -- at Bengaluru, Kolkata, <g data-gr-id="25">Gandhinager</g>, Bhopal, Sonepat, Chandigarh, Lucknow, Imphal and Guwahati -- should be headed by a Regional Director with full powers or two executive Directors in Delhi could look after the administrative and coordinating works of the organisation as well as matters relating to the teams.”

The Parliamentary panel also <g data-gr-id="23">riled</g> the sports ministry for its “lack of commitment” in collecting and spending funds in the National Sports Development Fund which was established in 1998 to mobilise resources from the government and non-government sources, including private/corporate sector, for promotion of sports in the country. “Since its inception, adequate funds could not be collected which indicates that the (sports) department did not make sincere efforts to approach the Corporate and the public sector for contribution to the Fund,” it said, and mentioned that as of December 31, 2014 the NSDF has a corpus of Rs 113.14 crore.