Sports bill: Cabinet refuses to play ball

Union ministers associated mainly with cricket blocked cabinet approval for a draft sports legislation that aims to bring transparency and accountability in national sports federations, including the BCCI. Chetan Chauhan reports. Conflicting interests in the way

Updated on: Aug 31, 2011, 01:55:42 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Union ministers associated mainly with cricket blocked cabinet approval for a draft sports legislation that aims to bring transparency and accountability in national sports federations, including the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

In view of their objections, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who described the bill as good, asked sports minister Ajay Maken to redraft it to remove “intrusive” provisions, which include a mandatory vision document by each sports federation on long-term development of sports in India.

The six ministers who opposed the draft were Sharad Pawar (agriculture), Farooq Abdullah (new and renewable energy minister), Praful Patel (heavy industries) , Kapil Sibal (HRD) minister , CP Joshi (road transport) and Vilasrao Deshmukh (science and technology). Home minister P Chidambaram and defence minister AK Antony supported it.

The bill brings federations under an independent regulatory regime and was prompted by corruption charges against the Indian Olympic Association in organising last year's Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The bill aims to bring all federations under the Right to Information Act and introduce a 25% quota for former players. A provision that irked many ministers relates to barring anyone over 70 from contesting an office-bearer’s post.

Pawar, who heads the International Cricket Council, said most ministers would lose jobs if a similar age bar was introduced for them. The average age of the cabinet is 64 years.

The BCCI’s political power was evident as five ministers associated with federations, including Pawar, reportedly termed the bill as “undemocratic” and urged the cabinet to reject it. Sources said Pawar suggested threatened to take up the issue with UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. Maken hit out at BCCI, saying many federations get indirect benefits from the government, including land at concessional rates.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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