Injeti Srinivas, Secretary (Sports), Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and Director General, Sports Authority of India, visited the SAI South Centre here on Wednesday. He met National campers and SAI staff and will on Thursday inaugurate an aqua-therapy facility on the premises.
Srinivas spoke to the press on a number of topics.
Excerpts:
On the possibility of extending the Lodha committee reforms to other sports: The National Sports Development Code is aligned to the Olympic charter and it will continue to be aligned. If we want to be a part of the Olympic movement, we cannot fall out of sync with the Olympic Charter.
If you look at it broadly, there is not much difference between what the Lodha Committee has said and what the code has said. 70-80% of it is common. Certain differences are mainly because this is cricket specific. This may not be relevant for Olympic sports. So long as we are keeping the Olympic charter as our touchstone, I don’t see any possibility of us going wrong.
On the restructured sports code: There are the age and tenure guidelines. Then, having fair and transparent elections. With issues like players’ welfare, there is a big gap.
Then comes the area of disputes. The government is certainly of the view that the IOA should hold the pre-eminent position of settling disputes in a fair and transparent manner. Empirical evidence shows that it has miserably failed. More than half a dozen Olympic sports are under huge dispute and it is damaging the prospects. Maybe something else has to be thought of. Will it be a tribunal, a panel, or an ombudsman? We need to look into that. Whatever we do, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Then, there is the management of federations; this has to be professional. Working part-time, voluntarily, out of the goodness of heart...this will not do. It is a very competitive world today. Then there are selection issues, grievance redressal, governance issues, conflict of interest etc.
Another major issue is whether this will be in the form of a code or a legislation. These are decisions to be taken by the government at the highest level and then by the parliament. The committee is more or less coming to a conclusion. A few sittings and they should wind up their work.
Reviewing aspects of the Target Olympic Podium scheme: It’s a fair comment [that the federation rather than the athlete should choose the latter’s training venue and schedule]. This sort of total independence to an athlete need not be generally correct. Very few athletes have that understanding of where they should go to train. So appropriately, the federation should have a say on that.
The TOP scheme will continue. Now we will focus more on a structured camp approach and camp discipline. I feel many times there are injured athletes...athletes with chronic injuries also participate in competitions. This will not help us. This will have to be arrested. 99% of the time, we may have to address issues for the athlete, but 1% of the issues, the athlete also will have to address. Discipline is very important. There will be zero tolerance for unauthorised absence from now.
This can mean expulsion from the camp. The system cannot work without discipline.
