Mary Kom, Leander Paes and Saina Nehwal included in newly-formed Sports Experts Advisory Committee

Mary Kom, Leander Paes and Saina Nehwal included in newly-formed Sports Experts Advisory Committee

The government has constituted a committee to be headed by Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya with three Olympic medallists as members to advise on identification and grooming of talent, ensure fair and transparent selection, monitor the performance of athletes competing at international events, and evaluate the coaches.

The 17-member Sports Experts Advisory Committee will have celebrated boxer Mary Kom, tennis legend Leander Paes and trailblazer shuttler Saina Nehwal, who all have won Olympic medals, as members.

Union Minister of State for Sports Raksha Khadse will be the vice chairperson and sports secretary or joint secretary will be the convenor.

The committee is made up of government delegates and retired eminent athletes from various sports, according to a Sports Ministry circular issued on Saturday.

The committee’s objectives include talent identification and providing advice for development of sub-junior and junior level athletes for training, oversee selection of national athletes/teams to ensure fair and transparent selection, observe the coaching facilities during national camps, observe and provide analysis on performance of India/foreign coaches attached to the national teams and progress of the performance of the national campers.

The other objectives are: Monitoring of the performance of the Indian teams/sportspersons in international events, taking up the athletes’ grievances with the NSFs for effective redressal, advice to SAI/NSF in formulating LTDP, feedback to government on NSF systems and bringing them on par with the best practices in India and the world.

Another objective is reducing court cases over selection policies and championships, communicating government’s programmes and schemes directly with the sportspersons through one-on-one interactions, strengthening internal institutional mechanism of the NSFs and feedback over quality of events arrangements, facilities and infrastructure.

The other members of the committee are Shiny Abraham (athletics), Heena Sidhu (shooting), Maj Gen VK Bhatt (rowing), Zafar Iqbal (hockey), PK Garg (sailing), Armando Colaco (football), Ashok Kumar (wrestling), Bhanu Sachdeva (swimming), Parul Dansukhbhai Parmer (para badminton), CEO TOPS and Executive Director of Teams Division at the SAI.

In furtherance of the objectives of the expert advisory committee, a sports expert panel made up solely of expert sportspersons, coaches and officials has also been formed for monitoring activities.