Standing Committee wants sports under Concurrent List

New Delhi, Dec 17 (UNI) Thanks to their worsening financial health, it's hardly a priority for the state and hence sports needs to be put on the Concurrent List with the Centre as equal partner, opined the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development.

Like Education, Sports should also be a concurrent subject but it should be done with the consent of the states, the Committee opined.

In its 185th report on Promotion of Sports in India, the committee, chaired by Janardan Dwivedi, observed that a large number of agencies are working in the states without any co-ordination among themselves.

''Such approach towards sports has not yielded any tangible results so far. Instead, it has resulted in utter confusion and wastage of scarce resources,'' it noted.

The Committee felt that in the present situation, with multiple agencies operating, there is hardly any law or regulation defining their role and the accountability here is just missing.

''Sports being in the State List, the Central Government lacks legislative powers required for strict enforcement of Government guidelines.

''Besides, the Committee, during its deliberations with some State Governments found that sports hardly was a priority for them, mainly due to the severe resource crunch....'' it noted.

Citing the instance of Gujarat and Karnataka, the Committee said in some states, sports allocation has either been stagnant or going down over the years.

''In such a situation. Centre's role and contribution have to increase manifold in promoting sports at national level,'' the report said.

''The Committee also notes that while Sports figure in the State List of the constitution, Education figured in the Concurrent List.

Both the activities...are inter-related; in fact they are two facets of the same coin,'' it added.

A legislation aiming to put Sports in the Concurrent List was introduced in the Rajya Sabha in 1998, which could not be discussed and an all-party meeting in 1996 was inconclusive.

Last year, the matter was placed before the conference of state sports ministers with Kerala, Punjab and West Bengal voicing their resentment against the bid.

The Standing Committee recommended that the views of the state governments be taken again before making a final decision.

''In view of the greater responsibility of the Union for encouraging sports, the Committee recommends that Union has to play a more pro-active role with regard to bringing Sports under the Concurrent List. States' fear in this regard will have to be removed to convince them about the utility of such a move by citing the example of Education.

''It was only after Education was brought to the Concurrent List (that) popular schemes like SSA and MDM could be sponsored by the Union at all-India level. All the states are benefitting from the schemes,'' it explained.

The Committee also sought another legislation for an effective coordination mechanism in the sports arena without impairing the autonomy of various agencies.

''Such legislations have greatly improved the sports scenario in countries like USA, Germany, Thailand, Sri Lanka and China,'' the report read.

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