Lack of coaches derail Games trainees

When a coach fell ill recently at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) here, the players under his tutelage, preparing for the Commonwealth Games, were left clueless for one whole day.

With just four months to go for the mega-event, all is not well at the country’s premier sports training institute, as expertise comes at a premium here, thanks largely to the stagnant pool of coaches.

Sample this, for starters: while hundreds of crores are being spent on world-class infrastructure for the Games, only 1,300-odd coaches are engaged in managing the training of thousands of sportspersons across the country.

In fact, the last recruitment for a coach at the Sports Authority of India (SAI) came more than a decade ago — 1998, to be precise.

Gross neglect

So acute is the crisis that the issue got a special mention in a report submitted by the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development in Parliament this April. “The most crucial aspect for preparedness of our sportspersons in different sports disciplines has remained the most neglected one so far,” says the report (The Indian Express possesses a copy).

A top SAI official said the inadequate number of coaches will hamper India’s preparations for the Commonwealth Games and the Asian Games. The ratio of coach to players here would be close to 1:100, the official said.

No recruitments in sight

Worse, experts said fresh recruitment, if any, would take at least a couple of months to be completed. “Sports graduates from the NIS are recruited by states or private institutions year after year,” the official said. “But despite the shortage, SAI does not take them in.” A source in SAI said cadre review is going on at present and any change in recruitment rules is expected to be done after a meeting by August-end.

According to the Parliamentary panel’s report, “The committee has been given to understand that strength of 1,623 (coaches) in 1997 was brought down to 831 by the Ministry of Finance. It took prolonged deliberations in bringing the strength back to 1,258 on regular basis, and 85 coaches on contract.”

Chief national boxing coach G S Sandhu said, “More coaches should be recruited if the country is to get more international medals,” said Sandhu, a SAI employee who is due to retire in 2013.

SAI’s coaching director Amar Bhardwaj said the sports ministry has already sanctioned 100 more posts following the Finance department’s green signal.

Almost 70 coaches are due to retire in the next three years