NEW DELHI: In the interim budget presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal on Friday, the allocation to sports has been increased for the financial year 2019-2020.
This includes a hike in funds for the Sports Authority of India (SAI), the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) and the corpus meant for giving incentives to sportspersons.
The overall sports budget for 2019-2020 has been increased by Rs 2.142 billion, from Rs 20.0272 billion (2018-2019) to Rs 22.1692 billion, PTI reports.
The allocation to SAI has been increased by Rs 550 million. From Rs 3.95 billion, the allocation has been increased to Rs 4.5 billion in the fresh proposals.
Besides, the allocation for NSDF has increased from Rs 20 million to Rs 700 million.
The finance minister also proposed an increase in the incentive fund for the sportspersons, from Rs 630 million to Rs 890 million.
However, the assistance to National Sports Federations (NSFs) has been reduced slightly from Rs 2.4513 billion to Rs 2.45 billion,thenews agency reports.
The overall encouragement and awards to sportspersons have been increased by Rs 940.7 million. The previous allocation stood at Rs 3.1693 billion and will now be Rs 4.11 billion.
The Khelo India National Programme for Development of Sports too got a hike of Rs 503.1 million and from the previous allocation of Rs 5.5069 billion, it is now Rs 6.010 billion.
