India’s sports budget gets a boost in the year of Asian Games, CWG

Allocation to the sports ministry has received a boost of ₹305.58 crore in the union budget for 2022-23, keeping in mind that this is a year with two major sporting events lined up back-to-back—the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham (July 28-Aug 8) and Asian Games in Hangzhou (Sept 10-25).

Following the record medal haul at the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics, India will go to these Games with renewed energy and hope. An allocation of ₹3,062.60 crore was made for the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. In the previous financial year (2021-22), an amount of ₹2,596.14 was earmarked that was revised to ₹2,757.02 crore.

The Sports Authority of India has been allocated ₹653 crore, a jump of ₹54 crore compared to last year's revised allocation of ₹599 crore (original allocation ₹660.41 crore in 2021-22).

The National Sports Federations also stand to gain. The assistance to NSFs was brought back up to ₹280 crore from ₹181 crore in the revised allocation in last year's budget. Since there were not many international tournaments and exposure tours, besides the preparation of elite athletes for the Tokyo Olympics, the NSFs budget was slashed from the earlier earmarked ₹280 crore in 2021-2022.

“Last year many international tournaments got cancelled because of the second (Covid) wave and there was not much activity for almost three months from Feb-April. This year with two major events there will be a lot more events and foreign exposure tours for our athletes,” said Wrestling Federation of India assistant secretary Vinod Tomar.

The National Sports Development Fund, under which the Target Olympic Podium Scheme for personalised training of elite athletes is managed, will receive a grant of ₹16 crore, a more than three-fold jump from the allocation of ₹5 crore the previous year.

The government’s flagship scheme for grassroots development, Khelo India, will get a grant of ₹1,054 crore that includes an assistance of ₹50 crore for “Enhancement of Sports Facility in Jammu and Kashmir”. Khelo India's revised budget in the last financial year was ₹984 crore, up from ₹737.71 crore originally earmarked.

Allocation to the National Anti-Doping Agency, which got its recognition back from the World Anti Doping Agency recently, has been increased to ₹17 crore from ₹10 crore in 2021-22.

The sports ministry said in a statement that it will “boost the anti-doping activities in the country and strengthen our commitment to maintain world class standards in sports in India.”

It said budgetary increase in the assistance to NSFs will ensure increased cooperation between the department of sports and federations to provide world class facilities to athletes. “This will further assist the preparations of Indian athletes for upcoming Commonwealth and Asian Games,” it said.

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