Minister reviews sports schemes, aims to make it career option

A high-level meeting chaired by School Education Minister KA Sengottaiyan discussed the challenges faced by the state athletes and sports associations and the Minister urged the stakeholders to popularise sports as a career option and also explain about the various schemes provided under the Amma youth sports scheme in the state.

Addressing a meeting attended by district sports officers, members and coaches of various sports association and officials from Sports Development Authority, Tamil Nadu, the Minister said that the government for the current year has allocated Rs 76 crore for the project to promote sports in rural areas. The scheme is implemented in 12,524 village panchayats and 500 town panchayats, the Minister said.

Late chief minister J Jayalalithaa was keen on sports and this programme is now under revision and the scheme will get impetus in the next one year. The objective of the scheme was to put Tamil Nadu as a better sporting state competing with Haryana, Punjab and Kerala that performs better, an informed senior government official said.

Issues like shortage of space in sports facilities and the problems faced by the athletes due to infighting between the sporting associations were explained to the Minister.

“Already an expert committee was formed last year to recommend measures to promote and develop sports in the state, but there is a need for more corrections,” a coach who attended the meet told DT Next. “The Minister has assured that the government will soon come out for a solution to sort of the grievances between the sporting associations.”

Sport and youth welfare secretary Dheeraj Kumar and SDAT member secretary Ramesh Chand Meena attended the meeting.