Cabinet approves revamped Khelo India Programme

The Union Cabinet approved revamped Khelo India programme that aims at mainstreaming sport as tool for individual development, community development, economic development and national development.
The revamped programme for period 2017-18 to 2019-20 aims to impact entire sports ecosystem, including infrastructure, talent identification, community sports, coaching, competition structure and sports economy.

Salient features of programme

Pan Indian Sports Scholarship scheme:  It will cover 1,000 most talented young athletes each year across select sports disciplines. Each athlete selected under scheme will receive annual scholarship worth Rs.5.00 lakh for 8 consecutive years.
Sports Universities: 20 universities across country will be promoted as hubs of sporting excellence, which will enable talented sports persons to pursue dual pathway of education and competitive sports.  It also aims at creating an active population with healthy life-style.
National physical fitness drive: Under it, programme will cover about 200 million children in age group of 10-18. It will not only measure physical fitness of all children in age group, but also support their fitness related activities.

Significance

The Khelo India programme strives to promote “Sports for All” as well as “Sports for Excellence”. This is for first time a long-term athlete development pathway will be made available to gifted and talented youngsters to excel in competitive sports. It will create a pool of highly competitive athletes who can compete to win at world stage.
It aims to engage youth living in disturbed and deprived areas, in sporting activities, to mainstream them in nation-building process by weaning them away from unproductive and disruptive activities. It will also promote gender equity and social inclusiveness.
It also includes use of latest user-friendly technology in all aspects of sports promotion such as, use of mobile apps for dissemination of sports training, interactive website for indigenous sports, National Sports Talent Search  (NSTS) portal for talent identification, GIS based information system for locating and using sports infrastructure etc.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2017