NEW DELHI: Following a meeting the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), along with some national sports federations (NSFs), had with Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju, it has been decided that yet another (emphasis ours) expert committee will be formed to look into the seriously long in tooth matter of the 2017 National Sports Development Code (which incidentally had its first iteration in 2011).
Net, net what this means is that other than more of the jaw-jaw (yawn!), there will be no move of any real substance towards implementation of the Sports Code, at least in the short to mid-term.
Rijiju indicated as much in his interaction with reporters after the meeting. “Sports Code is just a part of one of the things which we consider important but our purpose is to promote sports. With regards to Sports Code, we have already taken a decision that this is a technical issue and related to the policy. So, an expert committee will look into it along with IOA and committee. We will take a call at an appropriate time (again emphasis ours). We did not deliberate on the issue today we deliberated on the issues of promoting sports and Olympic preparation,” ANI quotes Rijiju as having said here Friday.
When asked about the reluctance of the federations to implement the Sports Code, Rijiju said: “The IOA represents all the interest of the sports federation, so when (IOA president) Dr (Narinder) Batra has said that he is satisfied the way we have approached that means we are together there is nothing called conflict. Don’t project it as conflict, we are together and we are working in a unison, we are together and we will come out with a solution concerning all the issues, all the matters which will deal and address the concerns of everybody.”
“Since we have come into a conclusion that we will together look into the matter so we can’t say, something is discarded something is accepted, we are going to move together. The focus is on the promotion of sports. The IOA and all the sports federation of India came together with the Sports Ministery and we had a fruitful meeting the whole day. All issues are being discussed and we have prepared our way forward to target objectives, everything is set,” Rijiju said.
Echoing the minister, Batra said: “All are on board with everything that was discussed today. We are satisfied with today’s discussion and are more focused (again emphasis ours) on Olympics 2020, 2024 and 2028,” Batra noted.
For good measure, Batra added: “I don’t know why you are going on the side track of the minor issues (getting repetitive here but again emphasis ours).”
At least the powers that be in Indian sports administration appear to be in agreement that the National Sports Development Code is a “minor issue”.
