ET BureauOne September 3, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore was named the Union sports minister. The Olympic silver medallist in shooting is the first sports personality to be in charge of the ministry. And within a few weeks of taking charge, he has announced the government’s ambitious Khelo India Initiative. In an exclusive interview with ET, Rathore, 47, spoke about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision for development of the sporting culture in India. Edited excerpts:
Has your own journey as an athlete helped you in identifying the issues facing sports in India?
I understand this because I have gone through the whole process. The pain of an athlete starts from a malfunctioning selection process. Then he has to look for resources, parents have to look for sponsorships. That is why under PM Modi, the government wants to take that first big step and help these athletes. And this is not a scholarship of a couple of thousand rupees, but a long-term non-stop commitment.
How much is the PM involved in sports development?
It is the prime minister’s vision (Khelo India Initiative), and the whole strength comes from there to push the system. A massive overhaul of the entire sporting system is underway.
How is Khelo India going to change the sporting culture and infrastructure in India?
All existing schemes were centered around what infrastructure will come in. This scheme is not limited to development of stadiums, it will also work for the development of athletes and the nation. You have to understand that sports is not about stadium development but about character-building, and, through character, a nation. This whole initiative is about creating an environment of sports in the country.
So, the government is going to focus on athletes only?
Let me put it this way. The ratio between recurring and non-recurring expenditure will be heavily loaded towards recurring expenditure. This means, for the development of soft skill, which is what we are going to focus on. It is about broad-basing sports, providing opportunities for playing, creating competition, picking up talent and also awareness of physical fitness and good health.
What do you mean by creating competition?
We need to create multiple levels of competition. Unfortunately, when we ask which domestic national competitions come to mind, the answer is usually Ranji Trophy, cricket. Even if we talk about non-cricketing event, it takes some time for people to give an answer. Just imagine, if we can’t name a national competition for a school-level kid, obviously we should not complain about a non-sporting environment. School Games Federation of India (SGFI) has been conducting games at school-level for ages, but nobody knows about it. Maybe the quality is not good enough and so it doesn’t become aspirational for others who haven’t taken part. It’s like they haven’t missed much.
What is the ministry planning under Khelo India initiative?
After the SGFI is over, we are going to launch a new programme, ‘Khelo India School Games’ in December. In the first year, there will be select games based on certain parameters like talent, audience connect, etc. We aim to create an environment, which is of the level of pan-Asian championships. These will be the best of Under-17 athletes playing in schools, training under different federations and SAI (Sports Authority of India) academies. It will be the best tournament at school-level.
It will become a platform for best talent to emerge. As we are just starting, this year, we don’t have much time. But, from the next year, we will also have foreign athletes taking part, which will further raise the competition level. Also, it is important for the federations to understand that they have to deliver and be as much of a stakeholder as the rest of the country is for their events to be included in Khelo India.
Any plans for college-level championships?
We will follow Khelo India School Games with Khelo India College Games. We are also identifying colleges where sports facilities can be created. Colleges are hubs where youth congregates. They have large open spaces and an ideal environment for good facilities to come up. So we want to connect education and sports and, thereby, provide the right direction for youth.
How do you plan to identify and nurture talent?
There are two ways we can do it. One is through the national talent search portal, which we launched a couple of weeks ago. Anyone from anywhere in the country can send us a video of athletes through this portal, who they think deserves to be counted as a talented athlete. It’s very democratic and no one can say he or she got left behind because of the selection process.
Second is the Khelo India School Games. The best will come here to play. Out of these, we would select 1,000 athletes and support them with an amount of recourses equivalent to Rs 5 lakh per year for eight years. And every year, we will keep adding 1,000 athletes.
This will help in creating amazing bench strength in this country across multiple sports.
And not just talent but as part of Khelo India, we will also identify arenas and sporting institutions, which will not be restricted only to government institutes. We will partner with them where these athletes will keep training.
Is sports ministry using technology for tracking athletes’ development?
There are multiple steps that we are initiating. One of it is creation of an IT-based structure where every athlete, from the moment he makes a mark, is tracked.
There will be a central database, which can be accessed by anyone who is conducting a competition. The aim is that athletes can focus on their sport without any artificially created hurdles.
The only hurdle for them should be self improvement and overcoming adversaries not paperwork. All the coaches, managers and institutions taking care of these athletes need to be reporting to us with their progress on a daily basis. That will be managed by IT-infrastructure.
Are you looking at public private partnerships in sports?
You must have noticed that a lot of people and corporate already are putting their efforts to improve condition of sport in their own way. From PSUs to corporate to NGOs, all do it. It’s just ironical that why everyone was not aligning their efforts together.
The way we are looking at it, Khelo India will align the efforts of every stakeholder – private or public, national or international; whoever is interested or passionate about the sporting culture in our country.
We are doing it step wise. We have already initiated that all PSUs will channelize their spends in consultation with the sports ministry. There is a committee, which has been formed as part of Khelo India under the secretary of sports. The ownership will remain theirs, but our aim is that at least the direction is unified.
Has your own journey as an athlete helped you in identifying the issues facing sports in India?
I understand this because I have gone through the whole process. The pain of an athlete starts from a malfunctioning selection process. Then he has to look for resources, parents have to look for sponsorships. That is why under PM Modi, the government wants to take that first big step and help these athletes. And this is not a scholarship of a couple of thousand rupees, but a long-term non-stop commitment.
How much is the PM involved in sports development?
It is the prime minister’s vision (Khelo India Initiative), and the whole strength comes from there to push the system. A massive overhaul of the entire sporting system is underway.
How is Khelo India going to change the sporting culture and infrastructure in India?
All existing schemes were centered around what infrastructure will come in. This scheme is not limited to development of stadiums, it will also work for the development of athletes and the nation. You have to understand that sports is not about stadium development but about character-building, and, through character, a nation. This whole initiative is about creating an environment of sports in the country.
So, the government is going to focus on athletes only?
Let me put it this way. The ratio between recurring and non-recurring expenditure will be heavily loaded towards recurring expenditure. This means, for the development of soft skill, which is what we are going to focus on. It is about broad-basing sports, providing opportunities for playing, creating competition, picking up talent and also awareness of physical fitness and good health.
What do you mean by creating competition?
We need to create multiple levels of competition. Unfortunately, when we ask which domestic national competitions come to mind, the answer is usually Ranji Trophy, cricket. Even if we talk about non-cricketing event, it takes some time for people to give an answer. Just imagine, if we can’t name a national competition for a school-level kid, obviously we should not complain about a non-sporting environment. School Games Federation of India (SGFI) has been conducting games at school-level for ages, but nobody knows about it. Maybe the quality is not good enough and so it doesn’t become aspirational for others who haven’t taken part. It’s like they haven’t missed much.
What is the ministry planning under Khelo India initiative?
After the SGFI is over, we are going to launch a new programme, ‘Khelo India School Games’ in December. In the first year, there will be select games based on certain parameters like talent, audience connect, etc. We aim to create an environment, which is of the level of pan-Asian championships. These will be the best of Under-17 athletes playing in schools, training under different federations and SAI (Sports Authority of India) academies. It will be the best tournament at school-level.
It will become a platform for best talent to emerge. As we are just starting, this year, we don’t have much time. But, from the next year, we will also have foreign athletes taking part, which will further raise the competition level. Also, it is important for the federations to understand that they have to deliver and be as much of a stakeholder as the rest of the country is for their events to be included in Khelo India.
Any plans for college-level championships?
We will follow Khelo India School Games with Khelo India College Games. We are also identifying colleges where sports facilities can be created. Colleges are hubs where youth congregates. They have large open spaces and an ideal environment for good facilities to come up. So we want to connect education and sports and, thereby, provide the right direction for youth.
How do you plan to identify and nurture talent?
There are two ways we can do it. One is through the national talent search portal, which we launched a couple of weeks ago. Anyone from anywhere in the country can send us a video of athletes through this portal, who they think deserves to be counted as a talented athlete. It’s very democratic and no one can say he or she got left behind because of the selection process.
Second is the Khelo India School Games. The best will come here to play. Out of these, we would select 1,000 athletes and support them with an amount of recourses equivalent to Rs 5 lakh per year for eight years. And every year, we will keep adding 1,000 athletes.
This will help in creating amazing bench strength in this country across multiple sports.
And not just talent but as part of Khelo India, we will also identify arenas and sporting institutions, which will not be restricted only to government institutes. We will partner with them where these athletes will keep training.
Is sports ministry using technology for tracking athletes’ development?
There are multiple steps that we are initiating. One of it is creation of an IT-based structure where every athlete, from the moment he makes a mark, is tracked.
There will be a central database, which can be accessed by anyone who is conducting a competition. The aim is that athletes can focus on their sport without any artificially created hurdles.
The only hurdle for them should be self improvement and overcoming adversaries not paperwork. All the coaches, managers and institutions taking care of these athletes need to be reporting to us with their progress on a daily basis. That will be managed by IT-infrastructure.
Are you looking at public private partnerships in sports?
You must have noticed that a lot of people and corporate already are putting their efforts to improve condition of sport in their own way. From PSUs to corporate to NGOs, all do it. It’s just ironical that why everyone was not aligning their efforts together.
The way we are looking at it, Khelo India will align the efforts of every stakeholder – private or public, national or international; whoever is interested or passionate about the sporting culture in our country.
We are doing it step wise. We have already initiated that all PSUs will channelize their spends in consultation with the sports ministry. There is a committee, which has been formed as part of Khelo India under the secretary of sports. The ownership will remain theirs, but our aim is that at least the direction is unified.
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