Every Olympian will get a Rs 40,000 job

If you are part of the Indian contingent for the London Olympics, you are a winner, medal or no medal.

Updated on: Jul 27, 2012, 01:15:43 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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If you are part of the Indian contingent for the London Olympics, you are a winner, medal or no medal.

The government has decided to offer all 81 athletes participating in the Games, which kicks off Friday (July 27), coaching jobs with the Sports Authority of India (SAI) upon return.

“As an incentive they will be offered direct recruitment as coaches in SAI,” a senior sports ministry functionary said.

Around 400 such positions are lying vacant and the ministry wants to fill half of them in the first phase.

“They will not have to meet any other educational or professional qualifications, and will not be required to appear in the written examination either,” he added.

Once these athletes join SAI, clarified ministry officials, they will be allowed to continue their sports training as long as they are active sportspersons. Once they retire, they will have to get a diploma in coaching from the National Institute of Sports, Patiala, and that done, they will be appointed coaches.

With this move the ministry hopes to meet the twin goal of rewarding India’s athletes with job security and creating quality coaches who will spot and train future Olympians.

Currently, there is reservation for sportspersons in the government, but for group C posts that are at the bottom of the bureaucratic hierarchy. The coaching assignment will mean group B or mid-level postings, which will come with a monthly salary of about Rs 40,000.

The offer comes close on the heels of a recent cabinet decision to allow three out-of-turn promotions for sportspersons who win a medal at any global event, including the Olympics.

Disabled sportspersons who participate in events such as the Paralympics will also be covered. In case of team events, the entire team will benefit.

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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