Mandaviya to inaugurate 2nd phase of talent identification programme

Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya will inaugurate the second phase of the government’s ambitious Khelo India Rising Talent Identification (KIRTI) programme in New Delhi on Friday.

The programme will conduct an assessment programme to identify promising athletes through notified Talent Assessment Centres.

Over 20kh assessments will be done.

This is the first time an assessment programme of this scale will be done.

KIRTI has a transparent selection methodology based on Information Technology.

The programme will also take the help of Artificial Intelligence to predict the sporting acumen of an aspiring athlete, a release issued by the ministry stated.

In its first phase, out of 3,62,683 registrations across 70 centres, close to 51,000 assessments in 28 states and union territories have been made.

So far, in the history of the Khelo India Games, assessments of athletes from Maharashtra and Haryana have done the best, with the figures standing at 9168 and 4820.

Assam was third with 4703 assessments.

Evaluation of budding athletes has also been done in 11 sports - archery, athletics, badminton, boxing, football, hockey, kabaddi, kho-kho, volleyball, weightlifting and wrestling. Maximum assessments have happened in athletics (13804) and football (13483).

Mandaviya will lay emphasis on the project that aims to achieve 20 lakh assessments in the financial year 2024-25 by ”onboarding all states and treating the district as a unit of assessment”.