Khelo India scheme gets big hike in allocation of funds, at the expense of Sports Authority of India (SAI), Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Rathore defends decision saying it will change the sports scenario in India. Mr. Rathore says India has the potential to produce 100 Usain Bolts if the country’s sports culture undergoes transformation.
“This marks a watershed moment in the history of Indian sports, as the programme aims at mainstreaming sports as a tool for individual, community, economic and national development,” he said adding the revamped Khelo India Programme would impact the entire sports ecosystem, including infrastructure, community sports, talent identification, coaching for excellence, competition structure and sports economy,” said Mr. Rathore.
Khelo India is a Sports Scholarship scheme, where 1,000 most talented young athletes across select sports disciplines will receive an annual scholarship of Rs 5 lakh for 8 consecutive years.
Khelo India is not only about winning medals. It is an effort to give strength to a mass movement for playing more. We want to focus on every aspect that would make sports more popular across the nation: PM @narendramodi https://t.co/yIPKy8QcqD
— PMO India (@PMOIndia) January 31, 2018
Khelo India National Fitness Assessment Programme
The government is planning a first-of-its kind programme, to be named ‘Khelo India National Fitness Assessment Programme’, to assess the fitness level of school-going children and identify future sporting stars. The plan will cover all government, private, aided and unaided schools.
A set of mandatory tests, named ‘core tests’ (for 5-8 years), will be performed by schools with two purposes in mind — fitness assessment and sports skills assessment (for identifying future talent). Core tests, body mass index (BMI) for monitoring height and weight, ‘Flamingo Balance Test’ (standing on one leg), ‘Plate Tap test’ (coordination) will be used for this purpose.
Fitness of each child will be tracked (via software and mobile apps) to identify and nurture talent. The data can be accessed by schools, students and parents, to monitor child’s fitness.
“This is done by other leading countries and that is how they nurture talent from school level and win medals at Olympics,” a top government official.
For those in 9-18 age bracket, there will be six core tests — a BMI, a 50-metre race from standing start position to check speed, a 600-metre run or a walk to check endurance, a ‘sit and reach’ test using a box to check flexibility, ability to do ‘partial curls’ for 30 seconds to check core strength and push-ups for boys and modified push-ups for girls to check muscular endurance.
Overt time, The government will identify athletic children and get them play multiple sports matching their interest. The government could also constitute ‘National Fitness Awards’ to reward and give special recognition to the top students and schools.
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