The Union Sports Ministry has cut the red tape further in its bid to enhance transparency, accountability, and speed of process, by launching web portals for cash awards to sports persons, pension scheme and also for accessing the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) or making contributions to it.
The Union Sports Minister Anurag Thakur announced that the revised schemes and digital access were meant to help ‘’ease of living’’ for the sports persons, and cut the processing time to a great extent, moving towards the ideology of ‘’minimum government and maximum governance’’.
‘’The sportspersons can directly apply for welfare schemes. Earlier the proposals were received through sports federations, Sports Authority of India (SAI), which used to take considerable time for submission of the proposals. Sometimes, it used to take more than one or two years to approve the proposal. Now the applicant needs to apply online for cash award within six months from the last date of the particular event,” said the Sports Minister, addressing the media on Friday.
The verification process for the cash awards has been modified to reduce the processing time, and pension benefits have been extended to the athletes of Deaflympics also.
The Department of Sports in the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has developed web portals specifically for this purpose. The application status can be tracked real time through one time password (OTP) authentication on the registered mobile number.
The Minister made it categorical that physical submission of applications would no longer be required and, the applicants need not make rounds of the government offices to seek their rightful benefits.
The funds would also be transferred to the bank account of the applicants.
As far as the NSDF is concerned, the Minister said that individuals, institutions, and corporate organisations can now ‘’directly contribute for players, sports facilities and sports events through the portal.’’
‘’The website will provide easy and transparent access not only to the sportspersons but also to the CSR contributors. It will make NSDF a great success for the development of sports in the country,” the minister said.
