Ministry Musings: BCCI Wants To Adopt Olympic Sports; Government Mulling Approval To OCI Athletes

The BCCI is "keen on adopting two to three Olympic disciplines" in the sports ministry's ambitious plan to have corporate-backed individual Centres of Excellence, the work for which will begin this year. This was conveyed by the cash-rich cricket body in a meeting with sports minister Mansukh Mandaviya in New Delhi on Thursday. The gathering also featured "representatives from 58 corporate houses". "Mr Rajeev Shukla, who represented the BCCI in this meeting, said that the Board is willing to adopt two to three Olympic disciplines and would leave it on the ministry to decide what those disciplines would be," a source in the sports ministry said.

"The ministry welcomes this. Our plan is to build Olympic Centres for each sport, which would train 100 to 200 of the very best in the country keeping in mind the current and the next Olympic cycle.

"There were 58 corporates in today's meeting and all of them were keen to support this plan," the source added.

Currently, India has 23 National Centres of Excellence operated by the Sports Authority of India (SAI). Of these, only three are single-sport facilities dedicated to boxing (Rohtak), swimming (Delhi) and shooting (Delhi). The two biggest NCOEs catering to multiple sports are in Patiala and Bengaluru.

Mandaviya has time and again reiterated his commitment to the idea of individual Olympic centres, saying that the inspiration for it has come after observing the functioning of training facilities in Japan, the USA, and Australia.

The BCCI has supported Olympic sports in the past by providing financial assistance to the National Sports Development Fund (Rs 50 crore back in 2008) and to the Indian Olympic Association (Rs 8.5 crore last year before Paris Olympics).

The Board had