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What’s the story?
India Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore paid a surprise visit to the Vidyadhar Nagar Stadium in Jaipur, in order to inspect the facilities in the arena.
Upon this surprise visit, Rathore found that a number of basic facilities like training ground, water, and food, for both, the sportspersons, and the spectators.
In case you didn’t know…
Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore is one of the most well-known figures from the bastion of Indian sports, after he clinched a silver medal in the double trap shooting event at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He further went to win gold at the 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games, a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, and more podium finishes in the World Championships.
His feat in Athens 2004 also went on to inspire the likes of Abhinav Bindra, who won India’s first ever Olympic gold in an individual event, at the 2008 Beijing Olypics.
After his retirement from shooting sports, Rathore decided to join the world of politics, and was given the post of Information and Broadcasting Minister after the Bharatiya Janta Party came to power in 2014. However, he was installed as the Union Minister Youth Affairs and Sports, earlier this year.
Heart of the matter
Rathore’s surprise visit brought a number of infrastructural inadequacies to light, in the Jaipur stadium. He tweeted pictures of himself inspecting the stadium, highlighting the inadequacies of food and water, and also brought out the general lack of cleanliness at the venue.
The stadium comes under the supervision of Sports Authority of India (SAI), and Rathore minced no words in his tweet, laying bare the blame on SAI’s shoulders, for the inadequate facilities at the Vidyadhar Nagar Stadium, in Jaipur.
“Neither food is good nor place is clean. Whatever Sports Authority of India can do will be done immediately. A sports ecosystem is not complete unless it takes care of fans. Committed to improving facilities for them too, at Vidyadhar Nagar Stadium,” Rathore was quoted as saying by Indian Express.
What’s next?
Being a former sportsperson himself, Rathore is the best person to figure out what the current upcoming athletes need, in order to progress in the world of sports, and bring home more laurels for the country.
Hence, we can expect the former shooter to conduct more such raids, and bring about such infrastructural inadequacies to light, in order to improve them.
Author’s take:
Cleanliness in a huge problem in many stadiums in India, and Rathore has spotted the lack of it in the Vidyadhar Stadium as well. This aspect falls in line with the BJP’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ campaign, which aims at creating a cleanliness drive across the country.
Hence the Sports Minister could make use of such drives for the betterment of the sports facilities in the country, something that is sorely required.
