Sports Ministry is all set to establish Khelo India state centre of excellence in every state, UT – Kiren Rijiju
New Delhi- 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 had identified state-owned sports facilities in eight states of India, including, Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala, Telengana and the north east states of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland which will be upgraded into Khelo India State Centre of Excellence (KISCE).
In Arunachal Pradesh the Sangey Lhaden Sports Academy, 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, 8 have been shortlisted based on the training facilities available in priority sports, infrastructure facilities and champion produced by the centre.
In order to upgrade the existing centre to the KISCE, the government will extend a ‘Viability Gap Funding’ in sports science and technology support for sports disciplines practiced at the centre 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 centre.
Speaking about this initiative of strengthening sporting facilities in the states, Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, Kiren Rijiju said, “The Khelo India State Centre of Excellence is being established to strengthen India’s pursuit for excellence in Ölympics. 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 a grant based on the actual amount finalized as per the requirement indicated after a comprehensive gap analysis study. The Sports Authority of India will extend expertise, resources and a monitoring system to ensure that the level of performance of the athletes improve to international standards.
