Sports Ministry is throttling federations, alleges VK Malhotra

New Delhi, Dec 30 (UNI) India has got its priority horribly wrong vis-a-vis the 2010 Commonwealth Games and to make it worse, the Sports Ministry has throttled the federations with its recent dictat on utilisation certificates, alleged Archery Association of India president Prof Vijay Kumar Malhotra.

Talking to reporters, Prof Malhotra lambasted the Ministry of Youth affairs and Sports for stopping grants to the federation ''on the pretext of seeking utilisation certificates of the last 20 years''.

''We are badly affected by the dictat. We have been submitting the utilisation certificates throughout and it's only after submitting your previous utilisation certificate that they clear your next project.

''It has been a queer situation over the last six months, where the Ministry has stopped all the grants. even if you are ready to submit all the documents, they ask you to wait before all the federations complete the process before you can expect to get the money, ''he explained.

''I had to raise Rs 40 lakh to find the archers' foreign trip and equipment and the Ministry owe us the money,'' Prof Malhotra said.

The AAI chief said both the Delhi and Central governments are generous with the infra-structure for the 2010 Commonwealth Games but money simply dried up when it came to athletes' preparation.

''Everyday you read some 50 flyovers, 40 hotels, innumerable tunnels, metro extensions etc are coming up for the 2010 Games and they are spending crores for that purpose. That's okay from civic point of view but is that going to assure you of medals in the games? ''At least 10 per cent of the budget should be allocated for athletes' preparation because at the end of the day, winning medals is what matters most,'' he argued.

Prof Malhotra also expressed hopes that Indian archers would continue to shine in international arena.

''In Asian Games, the men's team won the Bronze but we are not content with that. In women section, Dola Banerjee was unlucky to miss out on the Bronze and finish fourth and we had some expectations from the women's team as well.

''Anyway, the Asian Games was as good as Olympics, considering all the leading archers from the Asian countries were in the fray and we did well to finish at least with a medal,'' he added.

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