Budget'07: It came, It went and Sports Stays the same...

Nitesh quite aptly summed up his expectations from the Budget with respect to Sports, with Vivekananda's quote outlining what to look forward too. You may read that one,

Budget 2007 : What's in for Sports

By the way, it came yesterday and as every year sports still lurks among one of the disinterested areas of Government interest. Here were few of the highlights of the Union Budget'07 for Sports,

• The ministry of youth affairs and sports has been allocated Rs 780 crore for 2007-08, an increase of Rs 111 crore from the previous year. Although Rs 669 crore was the budget allocation in 2006-07, it was later revised to Rs 573.77 crore. A major chunk — Rs 700 crore — has been earmarked for plan expenditure, while Rs 80 crore has been kept for non-plan expenditure.
  Now compare this to something like BCCI, which earned around 2500 crore just from the Neo Sports deal itself, leave other things apart. Nothing more to say but I think this is less. Anyway being a part of this blog I even don't know who runs the Sports ministry. A pity but I don't care that much maybe.
• To give the Capital a facelift ahead of the 2010 Commonwealth Games — the first major international sports event after the 1982 Asian Games — the Centre has sanctioned Rs 500 crore in Budget 2007-08.
  Commonwealth looks in bigtime mess. I mean rather than doing makeup to cities and bolstering about things which don't really exist, we should concentrate of community level improvemnet for sports. why to show the world that we are great organisers when we are actually not. There goes hell lot of taxpayers money too.
• The budget has also earmarked Rs 62 crore for training and scouting sports talent in the country.
  62 Crore for training the Junta which tries to encompass training by foreign coaches and health care facilities for athletes. Absolute peanuts. I mean this is the area to which most of the money should have gone.

I came across this reaction by Suresh Kalmadi on Budget,

Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is not satisfied with the budget. You expect our athletes to win medals, but don’t release enough money for their training. The budget is no better that what it was last year. It’s very difficult to manage so many things like giving athletes foreign exposure, proper training and looking after their diet with so little money. I am going to talk to the finance minister and the Prime Minister over the issue.
As far as the Commonwealth Games are concerned, the infrastructure aspect will be taken care of. But with only Rs 150 crore given to Sports Ministry for CWG, it’s going to be difficult. The best thing is the government’s proposal of giving a five-year tax holiday for construction of new two, three or four-star hotels in Delhi and adjacent districts till March 2010.

Now this guy has been running Indian Olympic Association for ages now and I don’t think we have made progress by leaps and bounds in his reign. Political stupidity paves the way for Sporting doomness. Why do you want more money Sir, for roaming around with your Family to Greece or Beijing next time. Crap!!!

It’s said that the government offers just pennies for Indian Sports, and I don't see them offering anything more in the days to come. It's only when administration improves and becomes decoupled from political intevention when sports starts achieving what it deserves.

Technorati Tags: Budget, Sports Budget, Union Budget'07, Indian Sports

Source of Budget Info and quote: The Times of India