National sports development bill abandoned by NDA
The bill, which seeks transparency and accountability to sports bodies, was rejected by UPA.
The National Sports Development Bill (NSDB), 2013, which was touted as a legislation that would free sports from the clutches of politicians, appears to have been abandoned by the National Democratic Alliance government, which had called for the bill’s passage when it was in the Opposition.
According to officials familiar with the development, the bill was supposed to be presented in Parliament in the Winter Session, but was not brought up for discussion as no political party is interested in it in its present form.
“This is an important bill, which if made into law without altering its essential spirit, will go a long way to stop political interference in sports bodies. However, none of the major political parties are very keen on it. It was supposed to be presented in the last Winter Session, but it got moved to the Budget Session. It is unlikely to be presented in the Monsoon Session too,” an official with the sports ministry said.
Politicians cutting across party lines, such as Sharad Pawar, Vijay Malhotra, Anurag Thakur, Praful Patel, Akhilesh Das Gupta, J yotiraditya Scindia, Rajiv Shukla, Abhay Singh Chautala and Arun Jaitley head or until recently headed various sports bodies in the country.
The bill was prepared by a working group consisting of eminent sportspersons like Olympic gold medal-winning shooter Abhinav Bindra and former India hockey skipper Viren Rasquinha, sports administrators and legal experts, and was submitted to the then-Sports Minister Jitendra Singh in July 2013.
One of the points of the bill that is being opposed by politicians is its guidelines related to age and tenure, under which all office bearers of the Indian Olympic Association and other national sports bodies will have to retire at the age of 70. Also, a person who has served as an office bearer on the executive body of these oprganisations for two consecutive terms shall be ineligible to stand for reelection.
Another important part of the bill aims to give adequate representation to sportspersons in the top echelons of sports governance by constituting a National Sports Development Council, which would be headed by an eminent athlete. At least seven members of this 23-member council would be current or former sportspersons. The majority of the voting powers (15 out of 23) in the council would be retained by members who are not a part of the federations, the government or the Sports Authority of India.
The bill, which seeks to bring in transparency and accountability to sports bodies, was rejected by the UPA Cabinet after several ministers who had interests in sports bodies objected to it. Panic gripped the people of Kashmir after weather websites predicted recently that there would be heavy rains in the valley from July 14 to July 25. Kashmir, which was hit by a devastating flood in September last year, was in the brink of another disaster only last month when water rose above the danger mark in Jhelum on June 25.
Hundreds of families were forced to migrate to safer places while shopkeepers were seen bringing out their merchandise from the shops and shifting them elsewhere.