The Sports ministry said on September 15 said that it will establish Khelo India Centre of Excellence (KISCE) in six more states under the ministry’s flagship Khelo India scheme.

The centres will be set up at Sarusajai Sports Complex in Guwahati (Assam), JNS Complex in Shillong (Meghalaya), Paljor Stadium in Gangtok (Sikkim), New Sports Complex at Silvassa (Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman & Diu), Sree Shiv Chhatrapati Shivaji Sports Complex at Balewadi (Maharashtra) and MP Academy at Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh).

The ministry had earlier identified eight centres – Karnataka, Odisha, Kerala, Telangana, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland – in the first leg. The existing centres in the states will be upgraded into Khelo India State Centre of Excellence (KISCE).

“These centres have been shortlisted based on the training facilities available in priority sports, infrastructure facilities and champions produced by the centre. The sports facilities were selected by each state and union territory, who was asked to identify the best sports infrastructure available with them or their agencies or any eligible agencies that could be developed into world-class sporting facilities,” said the ministry in its statement.

In order to upgrade the existing centre to the KISCE, the government will extend a ‘Viability Gap Funding’ in sports science and technology support for sports disciplines practiced at the centre and also bridge the gaps in requirement of sports equipment, expert coaches and high-performance managers.

The support extended will be to a maximum of 3 Olympic sports per center, though support can be extended in sports science and allied fields in other sporting disciplines being run in the centre.

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