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

Budget 2007 : What's in for Sports

We reap what we sow. We are the makers of our own fate.
The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled
catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have
their sails furled do not catch the wind. Is that the fault of
the wind?....... We make our own destiny.”
Swami Vivekananda

This quote was used by the FM during his last year budget speech. Another year has passed by and now we are again waiting for the D-Day of FM when he will be presenting the budget for the 2007-08. Big question is what to expect from the FM regarding the sports budget. Will it same as previous years a marginal increase.

I will weave around the words of Vivekananda

We reap what we sow :

Very true what we reap we will sow. So we need very good investment by government of India is sports to expect some medals from the players in Olympics. There is no shortage of talent in a county of billion , but that talent has to be tapped for doing that we should give opportunities to budding players. There has to be stadias in plenty , sports equipments in plenty, coaches to train players to guide them, professional institutes to train coaches.
How will these come ? Not with mere 500 crores and considering the pattern that 400 crores will not be utilised effectively you all know why (Corruption, filling pockets). With 100 crores we expect a rich haul of gold and this discussion always start 2 months before the olympics with news channels coming with wacky headlines like
Kya abki baari jeet hogi hamari ? Kya abki bari bharat gold medal la payega

We are the makers of our own fate:

Old saying hard work always pays stands true to much extent but the big question is players work hard , they practice hard , what is to be done about the politicians who don't know ABCD of the sports whose committee they are heading for the past ten to fifteen years or so. Who is to blame for the continuous practice of sports ministry sending more officials then players in major tournament.

The wind is blowing; those vessels whose sails are unfurled
catch it, and go forward on their way, but those which have
their sails furled do not catch the wind.

Wind in form of having got the opportunity to organize big events like 2010 commonwealth games and bidding for the 2014 Asian games in Kuwait on April 16 and 17 . Getting to stage big events alone is not gonna help alone. There were rumors also that India is bidding for 2016 olympics, there is a need to have a strong base on which development/grooming of players and coaches is done. Take the example of china it is hosting the event when it has shown to the world its sports talent and there is high chance that china will dislodge the Americans in the medal tally in 2008 olympics. China sent a 700 strong squad mainly consisting of rookies in the qatar asian games. Do India has enough strength to send such a contingent? We have to utilize the 2010 commonwealth games as our base for olympics. We need to be in top 2 in these games with a rich medal haul not of 12-15 golds only.

Is that the fault of
the wind?....... We make our own destiny.

To a big extent it is the fault of government, but now I am hopeful that FM will give a big boost to sports. Tax benefits are expected for sports goods this measure will increase the sale of various sports equipments by large population. We need a big sports budget atleast bigger then the BCCI earnings. We need bigger grants not meager as in the last decade.

We will make our destiny, we are waiting for a ray of hope then future will be ours.

Am I right or ???? Comments..........


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India Budget Sports SportsBudget