Gone are the days when ministers and senior bureaucrats used to be leading the youth delegations abroad as the Union Ministry of Youth Services and Sports has taken a policy decision of replacing them with youth icons of the country. “A policy decision in this regard has been taken and my Department is in the process of preparing a list of national youth icons for leading the sportspersons and youth delegations to abroad,” disclosed Dr Jitendra Singh, Union Minister of State for Youth Services and Sports (Independent Charge), while interacting with the officials of Sports Authority of India (SAI) and Sports Council of the J&K State, here today. He made it clear that the minister has no business to be in sports for availing photo opportunities by putting batting pads and hitting inaugural ball. “As Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that the Government has no business to be in business, the minister and officers should act as facilitators and policy makers to encourage the sports activities instead of promoting themselves or their own wards,” he said. Dr Singh, who is also Minister of State in PMO and holds the Independent Charge of North Eastern States, mentioned that soon after taking over the charge of Union Ministry of Youth Services and Sports last month, the first thing he did was deleting his own name from leading a youth delegation to China from June 16 to June 19. “I asked the officers that youth delegations to abroad would be no more led by Minister or the Secretary who were earlier availing such opportunities on Government expenditure without any definite objective,” he said and added that a similar order was issued by him earlier while holding the charge of the Ministry of Science and Technology. Stressing the need for adopting revolutionary ideas instead of visualizing the things through the prism of 1947 when India had just attained freedom and priorities were altogether different, Dr Jitendra Singh explained that the issues have changed and we have to look ahead of others. “The Department of Youth Services and Sports does not mean limiting our activities to a generation only. Our approach has to be inclusive to carry forward the entire society by exploiting the youth potential and this is the responsibility of entire nation,” he said and added that Sports Council does not mean only to confine itself to stadium. The Union Minister told the SAI and Sport Council officials to make best use of the Department and be more objective as well as more impartial. “We have to see sports as medium to move forward and have the best for which officials need to be impartial and look beyond their own wards,” he said while referring to the allegations of favouritism in selection of players. In response to the demand for Central funds for modernization of the swimming pool at MAStadium and making it indoor, Dr Jitendra Singh assured to get the project through. He asked the Sport Council and concerned officials to identify the stadium projects for proper utilization of already sanctioned funds for the same and also assured to look into other demands of the Sport Council and SAI officials. Earlier, MLA Jammu East, Rajesh Gupta personally handed over the file for modernization project of MA Stadium swimming pool to the Union Minister and also apprised the later about some other issues and demands. Joint Secretary J&K Sport Council, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Sports Officer, Jammu, Rajan Sharma, Member Sports Council and BCCI, Ranjit Kalra and officials of SAI were present on the occasion and apprised the Union Minister about their issues and demands.
