What’s the story?
After issuing a warning to 41 sports federations of losing funding and recognition for failing to follow norms, the sports ministry have now constituted a nine-member committee to scrutinise and make recommendations. The committee aims at bringing out a comprehensive National Sports Development Code across sports disciplines.
A statement released by the sports ministry said, "The terms of reference of the committee are to identify basic universal principles of ethics and good governance based on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Charter international best practices, draft National Sports Development Bill, National Sports Development Code of 2011, Supreme Court and High Court judgments."
In case you didn’t know
The committee will be headed by Sports Secretary Injeti Srinivas who will study issues relating to sports governance including court judgements and best international practices. The other members of the committee include Beijing Olympics gold medallist shooter Abhinav Bindra, Olympian Anju Bobby George, legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone among others.
International Hockey Federation (FIH) President Narinder Batra, athletics coach Bishweshwar Nandi, lawyer Nandan Kamath and senior sports journalist Vijay Lokpally are also part of the committee. The joint secretary of sports, Onkar Kedia, is the ninth member.
The heart of the matter
The sports ministry had demanded full disclosure from the federations following the Delhi High Court order dated December 24, 2014, in which it accused the Badminton Association of India, for not furnishing details under the RTI Act. Only seven out of forty-eight sports’ federations in India could meet the stipulated deadline.
The nine-member committee was thus established to study and identify the existing sports governance framework and issues pertaining to good governance in the administration of sports in the country.
It focuses on making specific recommendations to constitute a comprehensive Sports Code to address the issues of governance pertaining to the National Olympic Committee and National Sports Federations (NSF).
Sportskeeda’s take
Just seven out of total forty-eight federations coming out with passing grades depicts really poor administration. Establishing the committee would be a positive step in coming up with a comprehensive National Sports Development Code across all sports disciplines.
It’s about time that all the federations come together and comply with the government orders to secure the future of sports in India.
