“Commonwealth games should transform East Delhi into a garden suburbia"

Sanjay Kapoor DELHI
From all accounts, Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs and also Panchayati Raj, Mani Shankar Aiyar was a doing a good job at the helm of the Petroleum Ministry. He raised its profile by building an alliance of Third World energy users to get a good deal from petroleum-exporting countries. He tried to pack in ideology, passion and some new thinking in managing the mundane affairs of Petroleum Ministry.

Now as the Sports Minister, the widely travelled and articulate Aiyar is bringing in a new perspective to developing sports in the country. He believes that it is the failing of the Government that India is so poor in sports. In India, sporting facilities are available to just about 50 million out of a total population of 650 million youth. He has been critical of the profligacy exhibited in organising the Commonwealth Games in Delhi—it would need Rs 7000 crore to organise a fortnight-long event. He is quick to clarify that the earlier estimates put together by the National Democratic Alliance government were “unrealistic”. He wants to leave a legacy that benefits the decrepit part of the city.

Hardnews met him in his smart office in Shastri Bhavan after he had just returned from a visit to Manchester.

Forty-six years have gone by since we last qualified for the World Cup football?
Yes, now I remember it was 46 years ago that we qualified. I imagine that it is desirable to organise football. Many of these countries actually deliberately and organisationally reached about to the farthest corner and therefore have a much larger reservoir from which to draw out talent. Small African countries like Togo and Ghana etc are figuring in the finals.

I think it is part of the affirmative action taken by FIFA to get African countries involved because otherwise they wouldn’t have really qualified.
They promised the same affirmative action to have India inducted into the World Cup over the next ten years. But I think the government has not done a good job of reaching out to the people because this country is enormous. When we talk about the millions to be brought within the net, we are not talking 2 or 3 million, the figures provided to me by the UGC [University Grants Commission] indicate that of approximately 650 million Indians who fall in the category of youth, and there are only about 30 million who have access to organised sport events in their schools. It seems that talent spotting, for a country which extends from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, is limited to the Defence Colonies and Malabar Hills. I have in mind the Panchayat Yuva Khel Abhiyan in terms which, I hope, over five years, to be able to organise sports facilities to every one of our two and half lakh village panchayats.

What are the financial implications of this kind of projection that you have made?
I would imagine that the financial implication will be a fraction of the cost of organising the Commonwealth Games and I am still working on some sort of exact figure. Whatever our commitments are with respect to the Commonwealth Games, we need to avail of the opportunity at our disposal to send the message of sports out to the large army of our youth who live in rural India, tribal India and urban slum areas.