Haryana ‘sporting’ tax

THE Haryana Government has put in abeyance a notification by its Sports and Youth Affairs Department that had levied a cess on certain sportspersons employed by the state. This cess was applicable only on state-employed sportspersons who make money from participation in professional sports or commercial endorsements. This cess, pegged at 33 per cent to 100 per cent of such commercial income, was to be used for the “development of sports in the state”. Chief Minster Manohar Lal Khattar put this order on hold after an uproar from sportspersons, but the issue is nuanced and a few points need a thoughtful consideration. 

One, such service rules exist in both public and private employment. Employees are not allowed to undertake a job or commercial activity that earns them a second income; in case they are given permission, they can be asked to pay part of their second income to the primary employer. Two, a government job provides financial security to sportspersons; most of them contribute practically nothing in terms of actual office work for their employers for a very long time. In return, asking them to pay back part of their second income in order to support sport is not fundamentally wrong.

However, is this order pragmatic as well? The notification seems a bit too righteous and ham-handed. And while the employee-sportspersons may not actually be of much use in an office, they perform a very important function: They encourage people to take up a healthy lifestyle, and a healthy populace translates to lesser burden on the medical infrastructure. This is the most tangible benefit of sport. Women sportspersons help in our slow march towards a more gender-equal society — this is very much evident in Haryana. Also, a cess could have been imposed only on the super-rich sportspersons — in fact, it should be imperative on those who run academies by proxy. The cess should have been imposed after consulting with and educating sportspersons. Finally, the cess will mop up perhaps a few crores. Is this sort of money — a pittance, really, for a provincial government — worth the ill-will?