Not much of a goal
31 pc Indian youth prefer sports as a career

India may be a nation of sports aficionados but when it comes to making a career in the field less than a third of its urban youth are willing to make a living out of it, a study by Assocham says.

About 31 per cent of the youth, mainly from Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, polled in a survey by Assocham, prefer a career in sports but only in high-earning games like cricket, tennis, hockey and shooting.

However, over 72 per cent youth in the rural and tribal areas of Orissa, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Kerala, Goa, North-Eastern states and Uttarakhand prefer sports as a career since most of them get jobs in the Railways, state government departments, PSUs and corporate houses, it says.

Hockey, football, archery, shooting, boxing and weight lifting figures as their choice over cricket.

“Rural sport programmes have boosted sports culture among the rural and tribal youth and created a vast pool of talented sportspersons,” the chamber says.

According to estimates, over 780 sports programmes in the rural and tribal areas were organised up to December, 2006, in various disciplines like athletics, archery, hockey, wrestling, volleyball, football and kabaddi, in which over 15,000 youth participated, it adds.

On their part, companies too have not extended enough sponsorships for games like hockey, football, athletics, boxing and weight lifting. The National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC) scheme has also proved to be a non-starter, it says.

The youth in states like Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Goa are not keen to take up sports as career, the study adds.

“The financial rewards showered on cricket players after they won the 20-20 World Cup has again reposed youth direction toward cricket despite the Indian hockey and football teams winning Asia and Nehru Cup recently,”Assocham president Venugopal Dhoot says.

With sectors like FMCG, finance, retail, IT, BPO, aviation, hospitality paying high salaries and perks, about 65 per cent of the youth from the mentioned states preferred a stable job in these areas.

To develop sports culture in the country, over 78 per cent respondents suggested that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports urgently design an programmes on the lines of Rural and Tribal Sports Programmes for metros, cities and towns.

The chamber has further recommended that the government launch suitable marketing plans to tap the Indian corporate giants for sponsorships. — PTI