Allocation for sports hiked by over Rs 200 crore in interim budget

​New Delhi: The government on Friday increased the sports budget by Rs 214.20 crore for the financial year 2019-2020, including a hike in funds for the Sports Authority of India (SAI) and incentives for sportspersons. In the interim budget presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal, the overall sports budget for 2019-2020 was increased from Rs 2002.72 (2018-2019) crore to Rs 2216.92 crore. 

The significant gainers in the interim sports budget are SAI, the National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) and the corpus meant for giving incentives to sportspersons. The allocation to SAI has been increased by Rs 55 crore. From Rs 395 crore, the allocation has been increased to Rs 450 crore in the fresh proposals. The SAI is the nodal organisation to manage nationals camps, provide equipment and other logistics to the country's sportspersons. Besides, the allocation for NSDF has increased from Rs 2 crore to Rs 70 crore. 

The Finance Minister also proposed an increase in the incentive fund for the sportspersons, from Rs 63 crore to Rs 89 crore. However, the assistance to National Sports Federations (NSFs) has been slashed slightly from Rs 245.13 crore to Rs 245 crore. 

The overall encouragement and awards to sportspersons have been increased by Rs 94.07 crore. The previous allocation stood at Rs 316.93 crore and will now be Rs 411 crore. The Khelo India National Programme for Development of Sports too got a hike of Rs 50.31 crore and from the previous allocation of Rs 550.69 crore, it is now Rs 601 crore.