JOIN USGoel comes hard on SAI
Appalled by the state of infrastructure and coaching at some of the SAI centres, Sports Minister Vijay Goel says he has sought an assessment report of the facilities as well as the coaches employed there.
Goel said he recently visited the Sport Authority of India (SAI) centre at Raipur and was shocked to see that the local municipal corporation rents out the facility for social functions.
“The SAI centre in Raipur was inside a stadium of the State government. The municipal corporation provides the place for marriages and earns rent from it. It was in poor shape,” Goel said.
“The coaches are there but they do not have enough students. If they have only 11 players for football, they can’t even have two teams. I told them it won’t work like this.
“We want to assess the coaches’ performance. Their appraisal will also be done to see how many of them use modern technology, how is their own fitness. I have visited SAI stadiums and told them to prepare coaches’ appraisal,” he added.
Goel said like in Manipur, his ministry is exploring the possibility of creating a sports university in Gwalior.
“In the last nine months, there is no institution or department that I have not visited, whether it is Patiala or Gwalior or SAI centres or Gopichand Academy. Gwalior has good infrastructure which can be used to create a sports university,” he said.
Speaking about other issues, the minister ruled out coming out with a legislation which will make doping a criminal offence. India had featured in top-3 for the third successive year in a report published by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for 2015.
Goel also hinted that government does not have any plans to bring BCCI into the RTI net. Except the cricket board, all other NSFs are covered under RTI.
“Let the Supreme Court deal with them first. We will see later,” was his reply.