No sports policy, medallists continue to exit state

Vikas Sharma

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 20

The delay in implementing a comprehensive sports policy for J&K, which has been pending since long, has left the medallists of different sports disciplines with no option than to seek admission in colleges and universities of other states.

Some of them are national-level medallists who are now representing other states in various inter-college/university competitions.

Sources claimed that some years ago, migration of players mostly to states like Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Karnataka, etc was confined to a few disciplines but now the scenario had changed completely.

They said in 2017, four fencing players from J&Khad participated in the All-India Inter-University Fencing Championship and represented Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar. The fencers helped the university bag the overall championship by winning medals in both individual and team events.

Recently, five more fencers, including national and international medallists, had taken admission in educational institutes outside J&K to pursue their studies at the college and university level. They include Javed Choudhary (silver medallist in Thailand Fencing Championship), Mohammad Tariq (national medallist), Vir Sangram (national medallist), Vansh Mahajan (national medallist and international participant), Tariq Hussain (national medallist) and Rajan Kumar (national gold medallist).

“Financial and job aspects are two basic requirements of a sportsperson in any discipline and that is what the players in our state are deprived of. There is no monetary reward for a player in the college or university if he/she wins a medal at the national or international level,” an international fencing player told The Tribune.

“Unlike J&K, the colleges and universities of other neighbouring states, especially Punjab, are encouraging their medallists by rewarding them with cash awards besides providing them all necessary facilities to hone their skills further. In return, the players try their level best to win a medal for their institutions,” the fencer added.

Apart from fencing, other two major disciplines, including wushu and judo, also witnessed migration of medallists to other states. In wushu, international medallists, namely Abhishek Jamwal, Rajinder Singh, Bhanu Partap Singh and Chander Dev Singh, left J&K to study in educational institutes in other states and also to represent their respective institutes in various competitions. Similarly, promising judokas, namely Anmol Abrol, Yogesh Sareen, Farat Gulzar and Kabra Altaf, also migrated to other states.

Shiv Kumar Sharma, joint secretary, J&K State Sports Council, told The Tribune: “Yes, there has been a delay in the implementation of the sports policy. Before it is implemented, the policy is to be sent to the finance department for its approval so that additional fundscan be earmarked.”