National Institute of Sport Sciences to be set up: Khullar

With the storm over the government trying to bring BCCI under the ambit of the RTI Act and BCCI alleging that the sports bodies presently under the government were not too good, Sports Secretary Sindhushree Khullar revealed some points on which the government was working to develop sports in the country. To tackle the issue of the huge lack of sports medicine experts, Khullar said on Tuesday that the government is all set to make up the lack by setting up an integrated National Institute of Sports Sciences.

Addressing the concluding session of the Confederation of Indian Industries meet: ‘Sports: The Healthy Way’, Khullar conceded the point made by several speakers before him including recently retired Indian footballer Baichung Bhutia – there is a huge scarcity of sports medicine experts in the country.

Before her, Bhutia had said, "The frustrating thing in India is that sportspersons do not have good sports medicine facilities from top to bottom. Even the big football clubs in India do not have qualified physiotherapists and masseurs.
 
"Because of lack of development in sports medicine we do not even have proper diet charts. While I was in FC Bury in England (1999-2003) I was given a list of what to eat and what not to, what supplements are to be taken and what not to. That helps in on-field performances."

"We are focussing now on the establishment of an integrated National Institute of Sports Sciences which will address the problem of lack of sports medicine practitioners. We are lacking in the area of sports medicine," she said.

She further said, "The sports medicine practitioners will also help in tackling the menace of doping by educating the athletes and coaches. Different aspects of sports injury, rehabilitation etc will be developed,".

Bhutia too had stressed this point when he spoke earlier. Speaking on the menace of doping in sports the former Indian captain with over a hundred caps said,. "India need to do research on food supplements. We can manufacture food supplements here. Most of the food supplements the Indian athletes are using come from China or Australia. So we don't know whether they are genuine or not."

"But we will not look it from the prism of sports only. It will be an integrated institute and all those who attend the institute will have to be a qualified medical practitioner first," Khullar added.

Another point that the government will be stressing in the development of sports in the country is the re-training of qualified coaches in the country in large numbers. This will start at the National Institute of Sports at Patiala, which was recently de-merged from Sports Authority of India. Earlirer, former captain of the Indian women's cricket team, Anjum Chopra had also harped on the lack of good coaches.

"NIS will become an institute which sets international benchmark in coach training and we will soon form a separate society at Patiala to start that," she said.