Dehradun: The state government made several announcements on the occasion of the National Sports Day on Sunday to boost the sports sector in Uttarakhand. Among its several decisions, the government has decided to increase the daily allowance of the athletes along with establishing a sports college exclusively for women in US Nagar district.
However, experts in the field of sports claimed that such announcements have been made earlier, too, and nothing concrete has come out of it.
“The state government is showing interest in sports only due to next year’s election. Also, Olympics have just concluded,” said Mohammad Usman, secretary of the Dehradun District Football Association. He added, “The state should take concrete steps to check talent drain taking place over the years. Also, earlier athletes were motivated to take up a sport as there was a higher chance of getting a government job through sports quota, but all of that has now been stopped.”
He further said, “Most of the players are currently without a job. I don’t know how the government is planning to tackle this huge unemployment among the athletes through announcements like those on National Sports Day.”
Sports-watchers said that apart from the usual issues like athlete migration and lack of jobs under sports quota, the state also suffers from lack of quality sporting facilities as there is not even a single Sports Authority of India (SAI) centre in Uttarakhand.