NEW DELHI: In the Union budget presented in Parliament on Monday for the financial year 2021-22, the Central government allocated Rs 2,596.14 crore (Rs 25.9614 billion) for sports, a reduction of Rs 230.78 crore (Rs 2.3078 billion) from what was allocated in the previous fiscal, IANS reports.
In percentage terms, the allocation was down 8.16% from the 2021-22 fiscal, which is not exactly positive news coming as it does in an Olympic year and with Union Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju having publicly expressed the “hope” for a best-ever medal haul from the country’s athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.
When declaring his hope last December, Rijiju had said: “I hope Tokyo 2020 will be a good platform for India to have a best-ever Olympic performance but we have limitations. However, there is nothing stopping us from 2024 Paris and especially the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics which is more than 8 years away.”
Coming back to the budgetary allocation, on the plus side, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) has been allocated Rs 660.41 crore (Rs 6.6041 billion), which is an increase of Rs 1.6041 billion over the Rs 5 billion that was allocated in the last budget.
The Sports Ministry’s flagship Khelo India, on the other hand, has had its allocation slashed from last year’s Rs 890.42 crore (Rs 8.9042 billion) to Rs 657.71 crore (Rs 6.5771 billion) .
Assistance to the National Sports Federations, however, has been increased by Rs 350 million. This year’s budget is Rs 2.8 billion while last year’s was Rs 2.45 billion.
Asset Monetisation
In a related development, the budget allocated for renovation and maintenance of 2010 Commonwealth Games stadia has been slashed by Rs 660 million, to Rs 300 million for the next financial year.
The reduction is significant, more so considering that among the matters that Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitaraman had declared as very important during her budget presention Monday was “monetizing operating public infrastructure assets, towards which a ‘National Monetization Pipeline’ of potential Brownfield infrastructure assets is to be launched. An Asset Monetization dashboard will also be created for tracking the progress and to provide visibility to investors”.
It bears noting that one of the important measures in the direction of monetisation is a “big thrust” on monetizing assets, in which is included sports stadia (emphasis ours).
On the matter of what has been allocated for sports in this budget, it is also worth examining the “Notes on Demands for Grants, 2021-2022”, which the Union Sports Ministry had made to the Finance Ministry ahead of the budget finalisation.
To view the Notes on Demands for Grants, 2021-2022, click here…
