Part III - Role of Government in regularizing National Federations & Media

Government can play the decided role in promotion of Sports in a big way.  As per present, participation of players in any event take the route

 – selection at Dist. level to participate in state events;

- selection at .state level to participate in national level

- selection at national level to participate in international events;

In view of the fair opportunity to  all Central Govt. (Ministry of Sports) should form the policy to regularize the National federations, and on the same basis, State Sports Ministry  can regularize  the State Associations .  The present policies need modifications and most important is there implementation, responsibility and accountability, which is not properly functioning presently.  It takes years for redressal and action for same.

a. Regularizing National Sports Federations : At National Level (Read State Level, State Sports Ministry etc. in the context)

1. It is the responsibility of Cent. Govt. to issue Guidelines for the functioning of  National Sports Federations viz.

a)         All National Federations must be registered under the prevailing Societies Regn.            Act. and duly approved by the respective Sports Ministry of  Centre/State, as the   case may be the constitution of the Federation;

b)         A constitution duly approved by the  govt. on the guidelines issued by Govt.       under the Societies Regn. Act.

c)         records to be submitted annually to the govt.

d)         Criteria & qualifications for  selection of Players, Coaches, Managers,  etc. for national & international events;

e)         Grievance handling mechanism in a time bound frame

f)          Transparency of functioning and  regular dissemination of information

g)         Policy for Release of grant / funds and accountability;

b.         Regularizing Media – Print Media

It is a common knowledge that for Media in India,  one and only sport is Cricket. I remember around 10-12 years back there was an article in Indian Express- “There is more politics in Sports then Sports in Politics”, it is also applicable to Print and visual media – there is no clear-cut policy for reporting sports.  Out of 4 pages or as many allotted pages, mostly these are covered with commercial advertisements . instead of Sports News in most of the newspapers;  It is possible to fix atleast half  a page for State or open level events,  indoor games etc. etc.

Position of Indoor games is still bad, as hardly their news are covered at State level events or open events;  As a policy, Media avoids detailing about the sponsor; but it is the sponsor, without whose support, event can not be held; hence it is more important to give the credit to the sponsor more evidently by the Media and Govt. can persuade the Media;

By making liberal tax concessions for donations and spending towards promotion of sports., Govt. can also help the Sports for more and more corporate sponsors.