Union Minister for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Shri Anurag Singh Thakur launched revised schemes of Cash Awards, National Welfare and Pension to sportspersons, Web Portal for Schemes of Department of Sports (dbtyas-sports.gov.in) and National Sports Development Fund website (nsdf.yas.gov.in) today in New Delhi.

Shri Anurag Thakur informed that Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has brought out several important amendments to Scheme of Cash Award to Medal Winners in International Sports Events and their Coaches, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay National Welfare for Sportspersons (PDUNWFS) and Pension to Meritorious Sportsperson Scheme of Department of Sports with a vision to make these schemes more user-friendly, easy to access and transparent.

The Union Minister hailed this development as another step towards Digital India by empowering citizens and reducing the gap between Government and citizens, system and facilities, problems and solutions and taking forward the vision of Prime Minister of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. These revised schemes will provide more transparency and accountability to give benefit to sports persons in record time, the Minister explained.

Shri Thakur highlighted that now, any individual sportsperson can directly apply for all three schemes as per his/her eligibility. “Earlier the proposals were received through Sports Federations/SAI, which used to take considerable time for submission of the proposals. Sometimes it used to take more than 1-2 years to approve the proposal.  To ensure timely submission and subsequent approval of cash award, applicant now needs to apply online for cash award scheme within six months from the last date of closing of the particular event”, he added.

Union Minister further informed that verification process in all three schemes has been eased to a great extent to reduce the processing time. To ensure that the coach(es) get their cash award in a timely manner, required changes have been made in the scheme. Pension benefits have been extended to the athletes of Deaflympics also. “To implement the above features in these schemes, the Department of Sports has developed web portal dbtyas-sports.gov.in to facilitate sportspersons in applying to seek benefits under the above schemes of Department of Sports”, he added.

Shri Thakur said that this online portal will facilitate real time tracking of applications by the sportspersons and authentication through One Time Password (OTP) sent on their registered mobile number. Physical submission of applications by the applicants to the Ministry would now be no longer required. The portal has also been integrated with DBT-MIS which will enable transfer of funds to the sportspersons directly into their bank accounts to fulfil the objectives of DBT Mission of the Government of India.

Union Minister further added that the portal will not only help the Department in quick disposal of all applications in time bound manner but will also be used to generate different types of required reports and data management of the sportspersons. The online portal would be further upgraded from time to time to suit the requirement of the sportspersons and the prevalent scenarios.

Union Minister highlighted that the department has also developed a dedicated interactive website nsdf.yas.gov.in for ‘National Sports Development Fund’ (NSDF). This Fund is based on CSR contributions from Central & State Governments, PSUs, private companies, and individuals etc. for promotion and development of sports in the country. Union Minister informed that individual, institution and corporate organizations can now directly contribute for players, sports facilities, and sports events through the portal. The NSDF corpus is used for Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme, Infrastructure development by eminent sportspersons and sports organizations etc. “This dedicated website will provide easy and transparent access not only to the sportspersons but also to the CSR contributors. This website will help us in making NSDF a great success for the development of sports in the country”, he added.