Sports Desk: Sports is an important element for all the overall blossoming of our nation. In the last few years, India has made stable progress in the field of sports. This prodigious potential needs to be displayed at a global platform. It is high time for us to inspire young talents and give them first-class infrastructure and training. We need to implant strong spirit of participation in sports so that the youths can demonstrate their true potential.
The Khelo India Programme has been introduced to revive the sports culture in India at the elemental level by building strong frameworks for all sports in our country.
Under the flagship of Sports Ministry, India is all set to establish Khelo India State Centres of Excellence (KISCE) in all states and Union Territories of India. With an effort to create a vigorous sporting ecosystem in the entire country, every state and Union Territories will be provided with a Khelo India Sports Centre.
Eight states of India, including Four North-Eastern states has been included in the first batch of the sports centre selection procedure.
Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala and Telengana including the 4 North-Eastern states Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland has been selected by the Sports Ministry in the first leg of the procedure.
The Sports Ministry has identified state owned sports facilities in the 8 states. All the 8 sports facilities will be upgraded into Khelo India State Centres of Excellence (KISCE).
The selection procedure of these sports facilities started in October 2019. All the states and Union Territories were asked to identify their best sports infrastructure so that it could be developed into a world class sporting facilities. The Sports Ministry received 15 proposals among which 8 sports facilities got approved after in-depth analysis by a government committee. The shortlisting was done based on the training facilities available, the infrastructure of the centre and sportsmen produced.
First batch of the sporting facilities to be upgraded to Khelo India State Centre of Excellence are:
Rajiv Gandhi Stadium, Aizawl, Mizoram.
Sangey Lhaden Sports Academy, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh.
Khuman Lampak Sports Complex, Imphal, Manipur.
State Sports Academy, IG Stadium, Kohima, Nagaland.
Jaiprakash Narayan National Youth Centre, Bangalore, Karnataka.
GV Raja Sr. Secondary Sports School, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.
Kalinga Stadium, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.
Regional Sports School, Hakimpet, Telangana.
The sports centres will be regulated by the states and Union Territories. They will be accountable for building the facilities’ capacity and also turning it into world-class level sporting faculties. The respective states and UTs will be accountable for all aspects of boarding, lodging and management of the centre buildings.
Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Mr. Kiren Rijiju very optimistic about the fact that the Khelo India Sports Centres will strengthen India’s persuit for excellence in sports.
Mr. Rijiju said that this effort will boost up India’s sporting facilities into a world-class standard. He is confident that this initiative will help in exploring talent from every parts of the country and train them into elite athletes. The main motive is to find talents and train them into world class athletes who can represent and win medals for India in international tournaments, precisely the Olympics.
The Government will extend a ‘Viability Gap Funding’ in order to upgrade the existing centres to KISCEs. The funding will help in bridging the gap in requirements of sports equipments, high performance managers and expert coaches. The states and UTs will identify and develop talents in each sports for which funding will be received. Also, The Sports Authority of India will extend their resourses, expertise and a monitoring system to guarantee that the performance of athletes improves to international standards.
Initially the 8 centres will be given a grant amount, based on the actual amount which will be finalised according to requirement.
Recently, the Third Khelo India Youth Games was held on January, 2020 in Guwahati, Assam. Maharastra state regained their supremacy again with a total of 256 medals (78 Gold medals).
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