Keep politics out to promote sports, pleads Dronacharya awardee

Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, December 22

As the Haryana government ventures to formulate a sports policy,Padma Shri Sunil Dabas has made some pertinent points for consideration.

Dr Sunil Dabas, who has been the coach of the Indian Women Kabaddi team since 2005, is also the first woman coach from Haryana and the first woman kabaddi coach from the country to get the coveted Dronacharya Award. The team coached by her has won six gold medals in reputed international events, including the Asian Games-2010 and the World Cup-2012.

Talking to The Tribune today, Dr Dabas said the development of rural sports infrastructure, establishment of a world-class indoor stadium, due acknowledgement and encouragement to coaches, provision of government grant and affiliation to the sports federation on the basis of their performance were must for the creation of a healthy sporting atmosphere in the state.

“Almost all government schools have vast playgrounds. The government can re-design these into stadiums separate from the academic environment. As Haryana villages have 267 Rajiv Gandhi sports stadiums, sufficient coaches should be appointed in accordance with the priorities of budding local players,” she maintained.

Dr Dabas stated that there should be a proper grading system and the evaluation of sportspersons/coaches in various national and international championships/events should not be left to the discretion of government babus. She asserted that the international coaches should not require the recommendation of the players they have trained, as required in the existing sports policy .

Dr Dabas said sufficient woman coaches should be provided to train girl players as many parents, especially in the rural belt, refrain from sending their girls for training from male coaches.

“Apart from ensuring fair selection of players, the government should also bring the state sports federations under its control. A lot of sports talent exists in the educational institutions and they have lots of infrastructure as well. There must be a positive coordination between nodal agencies under the Departments of Education and Sports to explore and tap this potential,” she observed.

She said there was dire need for reviewing the ‘Padak Lao, Pad Pao’ policy, SPAT and functioning of MLN Sports School, Rai, and to eradicate political considerations and infuse more transparency in hunting and rewarding talent.

“China is one of the few countries that have spare-time sports schools extensively to train and prepare future athletes. A spare-time sport school is a boarding school specialised in sport and established to train Olympic hopefuls. Students are selected on the basis of their athletic talent. They take academic classes in the morning and engage in rigorous sport training sessions in the afternoon. We can adopt a likewise policy as per our requirements and infrastructure,” she pointed out.

Dr Dabas said in view of the past experience, the active players should not be allowed to set up their academies and they should be entrusted with the job only after retirement.

“Besides, the award-winning sportspersons should not be given jobs only in the Police Department but other government departments and/or agencies as well. The private sector should also absorb sporting talent,” she added.