Sports ministry upgrades 9 sports including hockey and shooting to 'high priority' category

Nine sporting disciplines -- including athletics, hockey and shooting -- were on Monday upgraded to the newly-introduced 'high priority' category in the latest classification undertaken by the Sports Ministry which will ensure central funding for their national and zonal events.

Athletics, badminton, hockey, shooting, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling, archery and boxing have been put in the high priority list by the Ministry.

As per the categorisation, all national and zonal Championships of these sports will be funded by the Ministry.

"All mandatory, ranking and qualifying tournaments for disciplines in which India secured 6th place in the individual events and 8th place in the team events in the previous edition are also to be funded. Funding for the remaining events/tournaments shall be decided by a Committee headed by Secretary (Sports)," the Sports Ministry said in a statement.

"This categorisation shall come into force with immediate effect." The categorisation of sports disciplines is reviewed after each Olympic Games and the Asian Games with respect to their performance in these events.

The last such review was done in April 2008. Now that the Olympics 2012 and the Asian Games 2014 are over, a review was undertaken by the Ministry in order to make them eligible for assistance based on their performance.

"The matter has been deliberated at length with various stakeholders before the categorisation was finalised," the Ministry stated.