Federations need to shun factionalism, adopt athlete-centric approach: Mandaviya 

New Delhi: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday launched two key initiatives, and did not mince words while telling some errant National Sports Federations (NSF) to shun “factionalism” and adopt an “athlete-centric” approach.

Mandaviya said India is keen on hosting the 2036 Olympics and has also shown interest in bringing 2030 Commonwealth Games, and therefore it is important that government, federations and athletes work with co-ordination and consultation with one goal in mind.

“There is no reason why we cannot produce athletes and continue to remain behind at the Olympics. My analysis is we lack in putting timely joint effort. We get to know of areas where we lack but we don’t take action.

“When there is conflict due to factions in federation, athletes suffer. I don’t want the country’s athletes to suffer. It’s as much a responsibility of the government, as it is of the federations. I don’t want to interfere in internal matters of the federation but that doesn’t mean federations will not follow athlete-centric approach. At an individual level, I want to sit with such factions and talk to them and work it out,” Mandaviya said addressing the gathering of federations and athletes at the IG Stadium here.

In recent times, divisions within many federations have come to the fore during elections and that has impacted governance. Boxing, golf, kabaddi, equestrian are some of the federations dealing with governance crisis. Wrestling, one of India’s top sports, has come to track after a long time.

New initiatives

The first initiative announced was the issuance of sports certificates through DigiLocker that would help athletes keep their certificates safe in digitised format and produce it whenever needed for jobs and government schemes.

Mandaviya announced that sports certificates issued via DigiLocker will soon be integrated with the National Sports Repository System (NSRS), enabling automatic disbursal of government cash rewards directly into athletes’ bank accounts through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT).

Mandaviya said the DigiLocker initiative will be compulsory for all federations, as several athletes lose out on jobs and other government benefits due to delay in verification of certificates.

A top official of a prominent federation pointed out to HT that their athletes have been keeping certificates in DigiLocker but government departments still want physical verified copies.

“In two editions of National Games (Gujarat and Goa) we have digitised certificates but when athletes show them to government departments they refuse to acknowledge. The sports ministry first needs to tell all such departments to accept digital certificates.”

Olympic centres

Mandaviya also inaugurated a National Centre for Sports Science and Research at the IG Stadium. NCSSR will serve as a hub for high-level research, education, and innovation aimed at enhancing performance of elite athletes.

The government is planning to build Olympic centres and align one corporate house with one sport. “I have seen and studied the training programmes of Japan, US, European countries and learnt from them,” said Mandaviya. “In the coming days every sport will have one Olympic centre backed by one corporate sector. It will be an international standard Olympic centre 100 athletes can train and get all exposure --coaching and training facilities under one roof. This type of system is required and only then we will win medals. It needs a joint effort an athlete-centric effort and we have to align our goals.”

The aim is to upgrade SAI’s National Centre of Excellence with top-notch facilities. He said federations need to take advantage of all such reforms — be it streamlining governance or new system of training elite athletes.

“One federation will be supported by one corporate house. Every SAI centre of excellence will be upgraded.”