NEW DELHI, Jun 16: The sports ministry is all set to establish Khelo India State Centre of Excellence (KISCE) under the ministry’s flagship Khelo India scheme.
One KISCE will be identified in each state and union territory, with an effort to create a robust sporting ecosystem in the entire country.
In the first leg, the ministry has identified state-owned sports facilities in eight states of India, including Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala, Telengana and the Northeast states of Arunachal, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, which will be upgraded into KISCE.
In Arunachal, Sangey Lhaden Sports Academy (SLSA), Itanagar, will be developed as KISCE. The process of selection of these sports facilities was started in October 2019, when each state and UT was asked to identify the best sports infrastructure available with them, their agencies or any eligible agencies, which could be developed into a world-class sporting facility.
Of the 15 proposals received and examined, eight have been shortlisted, based on the training facilities available in priority sports, infrastructure facilities, and champions produced by the centre.
In order to upgrade the existing centres to KISCE, the government will extend a ‘viability gap funding’ in sports science and technology support for sports disciplines practiced at the centres, and also bridge the gaps in requirement of sports equipment, expert coaches and high-performance managers. The support extended will be to Olympic sports, though support can be extended in sports science and allied fields in other sporting disciplines being run in the centres.
Speaking about the initiative of strengthening sporting facilities in the states, union Youth Affairs & Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju said, “Khelo India State Centre of Excellence is being established to strengthen India’s pursuit for excellence in the Olympics. Our effort is to scale up the best sporting facilities available in each state in India into academies of world-class standard, where athletes from all over the country will want to train in their specific discipline. The sporting facilities have been identified after in-depth analysis by a government committee.”
The eight centres will be given grants based on the actual amount finalized as per the requirement indic-ated after a comprehensive gap analysis study. The Sports Authority of India will extend expertise, reso-urces and a monitoring system to ensure that the level of performance of the athletes improves to inter-national standards. (PTI)
