The new Union minister for sports and youth affairs Ajay Maken means business. No sooner had he taken charge of the protfolio than he made it known that he was deadly serious about cleaning up the mess left behind by a corruption-ridden Commonwealth Games while being fully focussed on building on the gains that accrued from the event. In this exclusive interview to Syed Khurram Raza, the minister spells out his vision.
How do you find your new role?
It’s very challenging. This the first time that I have independent charge. Now I can enforce my vision. The sports and youth affairs department is crucial. India is a young country. Forty per cent of its population is in the 14 to 35 age group, with the average age being 27. We probably have the largest sports-loving population in the world. Therein lies the challenge: fulfilling the aspirations of such a large number of sports lovers and harnessing the nation’s youth force.
After CWG, we are apparently now a sporting nation. Expectations have increased.Have you drawn any road map?
Even when the reasons were negative, CWG brought sports to the forefront of public discourse. This is a huge opportunity. The infrastructure created for the Games can be tapped by sports persons. We have to convert this euphoria into creating a pool of good athletes. We have to train future champions and ensure that the benefits reach various regions of the country.
India is a cricketing nation. Other sports face neglect. How can this issue be addressed?
You can call India a cricketing nation today. But it was different 30 years ago. We had many other sports. As a student, I used to follow hockey, football and other sports. It was perhaps only after we won the World Cup that cricket took centrestage. Now we are champions in other disciplines too: shooting, wrestling, boxing, archery, badminton, tennis and football. The biggest potential that our country has in any single sport is in football. So I feel it is wrong to say our country is just a cricket-loving nation and that no other sport can thrive here.
Funds play an important role but sponsors are not coming forward to support other sports.
Sponsors will come forward only when they are confident that the money they are spending through sports federations will be spent well and not go into someone’s pocket. I think the challenge lies in reforming the federations. In BCCI, the tenure limit is three years. This isn’t the case in other sports federations. We have to understand why some federations have been able to deliver the goods while others have failed.
How can you end the practice of various federations’office-bearers clinging on to their posts for decades?
We have set up a National Sports Development Board. We need strong legislation. I’ve asked the department to prepare a draft legislation which we will put on our website by February 20 and seek public opinion. What I have said is that the International Olympic Association, in its own charter, talks about tenure and age limits. We should be very particular in this regard. We should adopt good legislative practices from other countries. The US has a law that grants athletes 20 per cent of the voting rights in a sports federation. Why can’t that be done in our country? Sexual harassment and anti-doping laws are also issues that need to be legislated upon. There are age frauds as well. Coaches reduce the age of their wards by four or five years and they let them participate in National Games and National School Games. So we also want to have an in-built age fraud deduction mechanism.
Payments for some foreign vendors of CWG are still pending. What is the position now?
Immediately after taking charge I asked the CWG Organising Committee to scrutinise the bills and release the payments within ten days. Of the 45 foreign vendors, 36 were paid Rs 114.84 crore by January 31. Part payments of the remaining nine vendors have been withheld because of non-performance. Around Rs 191 crore have been paid to these nine vendors and only a sum of Rs 17 crore has been withheld.
You have another important ministry, youth affairs. What is the vision that you have for Indian youth?
It is an important ministry. Unfortunately, schemes for the youth have not been implemented. We have the National Service Scheme (NSS), Nehru Yuvak Kendra Sanghatan (NYKS) and National Youth Corps. NSS has 37 lakh members all across the country. In NYKS we have 1.25 lakh clubs in 501 districts and very soon we are going to have 20,000 volunteers in National Youth Corps. We give them a stipend of Rs 2500 per month for the period of two years. We have deep penetration among the youth but we are unable to utilise them for various youth-related schemes. We have elaborate plans in place to develop sporting ability and other skills among the youth.
Congress fought the last election on the aam aadmi plank but now the common man is badly affected by high prices and corruption. It appears that the government has failed to address the issues of the aam aadmi.
Well, we have good and bad people in all set-ups. The challenge lies in taking strict and immediate action against all forms of corruption. No party can claim it is devoid of corrupt people. No one, whether in politics, bureaucracy, industry, judiciary and even the media, can claim that they are clean. So what is the way forward? The way forward is that as soon as any case of corruption is detected, instant action must be taken.
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