Sports Ministry keen to develop 1,000 Khelo India centres by 2024 to provide budding talent platform

The Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports has time and again spoken about making the country a sporting powerhouse. To achieve the feat, the Sports Ministry has prepared a full-proof vision that will help budding youngsters find the right platform to showcase their talent.

In fact, Kiren Rijiju -- the Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports -- has already said that he wants to see India among the top ten nations in terms of medal tally in the 2028 Olympics. In the 13-page document, accessed by , everything has been explained as to how the country will not only look to develop a large number of sporting facilities, but also improve the present infrastructure further.

While the document speaks about ensuring the presence of one lakh Fit India Clubs by December 2021, the plan also says that the National Sports University needs to be fully operational by 2023-24. The roadmap also says that the National Centre for Sports Coaching needs to be operational by 2023-24.

"The culture of sports gets its roots from early childhood. The schools have to play a very active role if the sports culture is to spread quickly. Sports is required to become a part of the regular curriculum both in the school as well as in the teacher training institutes. A mechsm for holding sports competitions right from the panchayats to the State level needs to be created to establish an institutional set up for early scouting and nurturing of sporting talent. This department will initiate several initiatives in conjunction with different Departments/Ministries of the Central and State Governments," states the document.

From extracurricular to the regular curriculum, there needs to be a setting up of National Sports Education Board, adoption of curriculum and launch of the curriculum. Fitness and basic sports need to become a regular subject for teacher training and the competitions need to be held at every level including the national and district level, as per the document prepared.

The vision further states that a total of 30,000 boys and girls need to be scouted across sporting talents and 1,000 Khelo India centres need to be developed by 2024.

"For India to become globally competitive in select sports in the next 6 to 8 years about 15,000 talented players need to be identified and supported in these National Centre of Excellences. In this direction, the present support to 2,000 players under Khelo India scheme has to be increasing every year by 3,000 players so as to reach the backup pool of talented athletes to 15,000 in the coming 6 to 8 years," states the document containing the plan.

The document further states that SAI needs to emerge as a premier institute providing sports infrastructure and services of global standard. SAI would require human resources of high standards to achieve this stature. Accordingly, SAI would be strengthened to meet the needs of the sportspersons with the best possible services. The National Centre of Sports Coaching, National Sports University and National Centre of Sports Science and Research have to be operationalised to meet the need of specialised manpower in sports.

( With inputs from ANI )