Sports minister asked to reveal fund allocation in past 3 years

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday directed the union ministry of sports and youth affairs to file an affidavit stating how much fund allocation was done since past three years for all sports excluding cricket.

A division bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice D G Karnik was hearing a public interest litigation filed by city-based NGO ‘Association for Aided Justice’ seeking for the Centre and state government to provide more facilities and infrastructure for sports other than cricket.

According to the petition, the government promotes only cricket in India and neglects every other sport including the national game hockey. Other sportspersons are not doing better despite having immense talent because basic facilities are not being provided to them, it states.

“India wakes and sleeps with cricket. When the cricket team won the T20 World Cup, the government gave them Rs21lakh but the Hockey teams were not even given appropriate funds when they went for the 7th Asian Hockey World Cup,” the petitioner’s lawyer Dipesh Siroya argued.

The PIL seeks for the government to take effective steps for promotion and recognition of other sports in India.

“India wakes and sleeps with cricket with every win celebrated as if we have won a civil war and every defeat treated as a natural catastrophe,” the PIL reads.

The bench directed the union ministry to file their affidavit within three weeks.