New Khelo India Funding Model: States To Co-Fund Sports Infrastructure

Discover how the central government's revamped Khelo India Scheme, with a massive Rs 29,054 crore outlay, now mandates state participation in funding sports infrastructure, aiming to boost India's athletic prowess and global sporting presence.

Key Points

The central government has revamped the Khelo India Scheme with a Rs 29,054 crore outlay for a five-year plan.
A new Rs 565 crore component requires states to co-share the cost of future sports infrastructure development.
Funding ratios vary: 60:40 for general states, 90:10 for North-Eastern and Himalayan states, and 100% central funding for Union Territories.
This new model aims to increase state ownership and participation, a departure from the previous central-only funding.
The Assistance to National Sports Federations (ANSF) scheme will support India's ambitions to host major international sporting events and prepare for global competitions.

Revamping the funding pattern of the Khelo India Scheme, the central government has set aside a Rs 565 crore component for states which they will dip into to share the cost of future sports infrastructure development projects in the five-year plan. The union cabinet, earlier this week, approved a Rs 29,054 crore outlay for the Khelo India Scheme along with Rs 7,387 crore for the Assistance to National Sports Federations Scheme (ANSF).

Revealing the finer details of the Khelo India Scheme fund, the sports ministry said the central share from the corpus would be Rs 28,489 crore and the state share has been set at Rs 565 crore. However, the ministry did not provide details of the individual share allotted to each state.

New Funding Ratios for States and UTs

As per the scheme, the funding ratio for infrastructure development in general states would be 60:40 with the central government bearing the majority of the cost. For the North-Eastern (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura) and Himalayan states (Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand), the central government would bear 90 per cent of the cost. The infrastructure in Union Territories (Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, and Puducherry) would be entirely funded by the central government.

"This demarcation was not there in the previous Khelo India Scheme and this has been done to make states a partner in the process and provide them ownership in the projects," a Sports Ministry source told PTI. The new outlay is eight times the funds earmarked for the previous Khelo India Scheme, which only had provisions for central funding with no specific fund or role assigned to states. Currently, there are close to 3000 Khelo India Athletes across 22 sports. The sports ministry is hoping that the numbers would rise at least nine times "creating adequate bench strength."

ANSF: Boosting India's Global Sporting Ambitions

The Ministry is aiming to utilise ANSF to support India's event-hosting ambitions, including this month's Badminton World Championships in Delhi. The Asian Athletics Relays next year and the World Athletics Indoor Championship in 2028 followed by the World Police and Fire Games in 2029 would also be funded through ANSF. The ANSF funds would also be used to prepare for the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and support India's bid for the 2036 Olympic and Paralympic Games. ANSF was launched in 2001 and functions as a supplemental support scheme for National Sports Federations.

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