Anurag Thakur pitches for common pool of cash awards for medallists

Sports Minister Anurag Thakur on Monday pushed for a common pool of cash awards for athletes with both the central and state governments accumulating funds to provide equal benefits to athletes winning medals for India.

During a virtual interaction, Thakur asked the sports ministers of states and union territories to send their feedback in this regard. The meeting was organised to draw a road map to prepare the Indian athletes for future Olympics, Asian Games and Commonwealth Games and evaluate how the states are contributing to promote sports at the grassroots.

The meeting was also attended by sports secretary Ravi Mittal. Thakur said sports is a state subject and the overall motive of the interaction was to urge the states to organise sporting events across rural and urban areas for able-bodied and para-athletes as well as play a key role in identification of talents at the grassroots level.

"Today's meeting was very fruitful and we have agreed to meet at least twice in a year to evaluate the progress and how we can come up with better infrastructure, more coaches and more trainers and physiotherapists," he said after the meeting.

"Apart from that we will be looking to create a dashboard, where the data related to sports infrastructure will be available from each state, district, block. "The dashboard will give all relevant information like how many coaches are available, what kind of sports will be played in those indoor stadium or outdoor games etc. and all these details will be available at the click of a button."

Thakur also said that there will be a talent hunt programme for various sports to identify youngsters and train them for future events.