Year End Review

·                     Rio Paralympics – 2016: India won its highest ever medal tally of 4 medals (2 Gold, 1 Silver and 1 Bronze all in athletics). The athletes are Shri Devendra Jhajharia and Shri Mariappan, Gold medalists, Ms Deepa Malik, Silver medalist and Shri Varun Singh Bhati, Bronze medalist. Cash award distribution function was held for medal winners of Rio Olympics/Paralympics. Prime Minister met medal winners in Paralympics 2016 on 22.9.2016.

Participation of Athletes ensuring and making all arrangements for participation of the largest ever contingent of India in Olympics / Paralympics 2016 in Rio. India won 2 medals in Olympics (1 silver and 1 Bronze in Badminton and wrestling respectively).

·         12^th South Asian Games were successfully conducted at Guwahati and Shillong in February 2016 India’s regional supremacy went unchallenged with a record-breaking haul of 308 medals. India’s final tally stood at 188 gold, 99 silver and 30 bronze medals. It was a massive jump in medal count for the Indians, who had won 175, including 90 gold, in the previous edition of the Games in 2010.

·                     Committees for selection of sports awardees were constituted, sports awards finalized and given away by President of India in Rashtrapati Bhawan      on 29th August, 2016.  Prime Minister also met the awardees on 28th             August, 2016.

·                     BRICS U-17 Football tournament: First ever U-17 Football tournament among teams of five BRICS countries was organized and successfully held at Goa in October 2016.  All the five BRICS countries participated in the same.

·                     Run for Rio on 31st July, 2016 was organized to create awareness among masses about Rio Olympics and to convey wishes of the country-men to Olympians and Paralympians participating in Rio for 2016.  The same was flagged off by Prime Minister.

·                     Consultation with Elite sports persons:  First ever Round Table conference was held with Khel Ratna Awardees, Dronacharya Awardees and other eminent sports personalities/athletes in Vigyan Bhawan on 3rd October, 2016 on the performance of India in Olympics / Paralympics 2016 and action plan for future.

·                     Indian U-18 Men Hockey Team won gold in 4^th at Dhaka Asia cup beating Bangladesh in the final at Dhaka.

·                     “Chintan Workshop”a brain storming session was held with former Olympians, Sports Science Experts, Sr. Beaurocrats of Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports on 10.11.2016 at Major Dhyanchand National Stadium.

·                     National Sports Day was celebrated on 29.08.2016 at Major Dhyanchand National Stadium.

·                     All India Meeting of grassroots level officers of SAI at different SAI Training Centres spread across India was held on 17^th October, 2016 to know about the issues relating to the Centres.

·                     Khelo Football:  Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society (SMSES) has already organized a pilot programme “#Khelo Football”, for development and popularization of football. Through this programme, talents from the remote areas has been scouted and one team each in the Junior Girls and Boys has been formed and given Wild Card Entry in the 57th edition of Subroto Cup Football Tournament 2016. Both teams have undergone training under the supervision of coaches from Delhi Dynamos FC. Also, Football Utsavas and Raahgiri days were conducted to associate general public and educate them with the awareness of sports oriented lifestyle. Rs. 80 lac was sanctioned by the Ministry for the Khelo Football programme.

·                     Village level sports competitions in Jammu & Kashmir: Rs. 5 Crores have been released to J&K under Khelo India Scheme for organising village level sports competitions in sports disciplines which are popular in the valley so that young children can be engaged in productive activities.

·                     Addressing the 64th meeting of the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE), Minister of State (I/C) emphasized the need to make Sports a Compulsory Subject in Schools and give marks for it, and also that every educational institution should have access to a playfield and basic sports facilities. Such institutions which do not have these facilities should tie up with neighboring institutions.  Further, it was also suggested that, physical education teachers should be engaged by every school. Standard guidelines should be framed and issued for admission under sports quota, relaxation to sportspersons from attendance and appearance in examinations.

·                     MoU between India and New Zealand on cooperation in the field of Youth and Sports: A MoU was signed between the two countries on 28^th October, 2016 at New Delhi. The MoU envisages cooperation between the two countries in the field of Youth Affairs & Sports and will encourage and promote an exchange of programs, experiences, skills, techniques, information and knowledge.

·                     MOS (I/C) YA&S chaired a meeting of 46 major Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and Public Sector Banks (PSBs) on 24.11.16: The meeting was for seeking their cooperation in sports. It emerged that there should be synergy of efforts between organizations for sports development.

·                     Mission 11 Million Programme: FIFA U-17 World Cup is being looked at as an opportunity to popularize the sport of Football amongst youth. Following the call of Prime Minister, the Department of Sports has taken a series of steps to popularize Football throughout the country. After several rounds of discussion with FIFA, AIFF, KVS, CBSE, Subroto Mukerjee Sports Education Society (SMSES) and other stake-holders a ‘Mission 11 Million programme’ has been formulated to be launched in collaboration with AIFF and FIFA in about 30 cities across the country. The primary objective of the programme is to engage more than 11 million children in activities relating to Football. The programme is likely to be launched soon. The Ministry has sanctioned Rs. 12.55 crore for the programme.

·                      Launch of a new scheme ‘Khelo India - National Programme for Development of Sports’:  A new Central Sector Scheme namely ‘Khelo India’ was launched from the financial year 2016-17 onwards. The scheme has three components viz., competitions from district level upwards, talent nurturing and development of sports infrastructure from Tehsil  level onwards and funds have been provided to various states for conducting Sports competitions from district level upwards.                     

·                     Conference of the State Ministers and Secretaries for Youth Affairs and Sports was held in Vigyan Bhawan at New Delhi on 15.11.16. It was discussed that state governments will also need to enhance funding for Broad Basing of Sports and Excellence in Sports and provide adequate funds for maintenance of Sports infrastructure already created. It would also be desirable that funding of State and National Sports Federations are tied with measurable outputs and performances.

·                     Special Certificate Course in Sports Coaching for J&K Sportspersons Started at National Institute of Sports (NIS), Patiala: The Minister of State (I/C) for Youth Affairs and Sports inaugurated Special Certificate Course in Sports Coaching for Jammu and Kashmir sportspersons at Netaji Subhash National Institute of Sports (NSNIS) Patiala.

·                     Rs. 5 Crores have been released to J&K under Khelo India Scheme for organising village level sports competitions in sports disciplines which are popular in the valley so that young children can be engaged in productive activities.

·                     National Sports development bill has been sent to Legislative department for approval and is likely to be introduced in Budget session of parliament.             

·                     MoS (I/C) MYAS, has also written to Chairman, DDA, to make necessary policy changes in the allotment policy of land by DDA for the schools for restoration of allotment of land of 4 acres to new Senior Secondary Schools, subject to the condition that a minimum of 2 acres, out of the land is developed as playground/play area, and 2 acres of for new Primary Schools in Delhi, whether they are Government or private.

·                     Direct Benefit Transfer : Matter has been taken up with all the States with the request to issue requisite instructions to create a DBT portal in the Department of Sports/State Sports Councils of the States/UTs to make payments to the beneficiaries through RTGS/NEFT/PFMS and create a digitization of the beneficiaries database, obtain and seed Aadhar card details of beneficiaries and include the details of payment whether it is in cash or in kind.

·                     Matter has been taken up and being pursued with Ministry of HRD  for integration of sports with education.  For realizing full potential of sports, it was suggested that there should be one period every day devoted compulsorily for sports and games upto 12^th class and twice a week in colleges and institutes of higher education, at least upto 2^nd year of their college education.   Further, it was also suggested sporting activities by students are to be  evaluated like academic subjects  and to be promoted to the next class only when they have achieved minimum marks, as specified for other subjects.  

·                     India beat Belgium 2-1 to win junior hockey world cup title on 18.12.2016.

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