Nine sports included in Ministry's 'high priority' list

Sports Ministry on Monday promoted nine sports to its newly introduced “high priority” category. Athletics, badminton, hockey, shooting, tennis, weightlifting, wrestling and archery have made it to the elite list where their national and zonal championships will be funded by the government.

“All mandatory, ranking and qualifying tournaments for disciplines in which India secured sixth place in the individual events and eighth place in the team events in the previous edition are also to be funded. Funding for the remaining events/ tournaments shall be decided by a committee headed by Secretary (Sports)," the Sports Ministry said in a statement.

The categorisation of various sports disciplines is reviewed after each Olympic Games and the Asian Games with respect to their performance in these Games. The last such review was done in April 2008.

It was also made clear to the National Sports Federations that they should not be “exclusively” looking at the Government for funding of their entire activities.  Financial support from the Government should only be supplemental in nature, the release stated.
Under the revised classification, gymnastics and taekwondo have been upgraded from general to 'priority' category which also includes football, billiards and snooker, golf and swimming.