Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been asked by All India Council for Sports (AICS) to hike the fund allocation for sports in this year's Union Budget to Rs 12,500 crore
The Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has been asked to hike the fund allocation for sports in this year's Union Budget to Rs 12,500 crore. The request was made by the All India Council for Sports (AICS) in a written request. AICS also requested Jaitley to launch a "sports for all" scheme so that the country can become a super power by 2020.
The letter written by AICS President Vijay Kumar Malhotra was a follow-up of the first meeting of the revived body held on January 9.
Malhotra, who has served as Acting President of Indian Olympic Association besides being associated with Archery Association of India for 40 years, rued in the latter that over the years sports has not got the importance it deserved and allocation of funds in the budget has been meagre as compared to other countries.
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"Members present (in the meeting) discussed in detail the need to consolidate various schemes so as to make India a super power in sports by 2020 as it felt that world over countries are spending huge amount of money to boost and develop sports and its infrastructure," Malhotra said in the letter.
"In India, it (sports) has yet not been given the importance it deserves. The funds allotted for sports in the budget are always meagre and do not justify to the mammoth sports fraternity spanning all over the country," he said.
He urged the Finance Minister to launch a "Sports for All" scheme on the lines of "Food for All" scheme of the government.
"2016 being the Olympic year, I urge you to allocate much larger fund for sports this year so that it becomes a trend and pattern for future budgets so that sports reaches every village and urban areas by launching a 'Sports for All' scheme in line with 'Food for All'.
"In order to achieve this, it was decided to request you to kindly consider enhancement of budgetary allocation for sports from present Rs 917.62 crore (Plan Rs 835.61 and Non-Plan Rs 82.00) which comes to approximately Rs 8 per capita to Rs 12,500 crore so as to spend at least Rs 100 per capita on sports as some of the states are spending Rs 80 to Rs 100 per capita on sports," he said.
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 "Finance Minister Arun Jaitley")
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