Results of sports development drive by year end – Sports Minister

By Dinesh Weerawansa

* New National Sports Policy ready

* Kreeda Shakthi scholarships for future stars

*Two-year term for NSA officials

*Extended to four years if found efficient

Minister of Sports, Mahindananda Aluthgamage said that the real results of the new programs implemented by his Ministry during last year could only be experienced by the end of this year. Expressing his full satisfaction on the progress of the Sports Ministry during 2011, Minister Aluthgamage said the success of the numerous programs launched by the Ministry could gradually be experienced this year. He said it was a challenge that President Mahinda Rajapaksa entrusted him in November 2009.

“I like to face challenges in my life. When the Sports Ministry was handed over to me little over an year ago, it was a huge challenge. I equally rose to the occasion and worked tirelessly for one year to put the mechanism on the right track,” he said.

The Minister said that steps have been taken to amend the National Sports Act 1973. “The draft in this regard was approved by the Attorney General's Department. We want to give more time, longer periods in office for the officials of the National Sports Association so that they could settle down and do a good amount of work,” he said.

Accordingly, term of NSAs executive committees would be initially for two years with the option of extending it by two more years with the approval of the Minister. That means an elected Ex-Co of a NSA could continue for four years without facing elections.

“The current system of holding elections annually does not sound good. An elected President of a sports body or an ex-co will only have six months to work, they will have to devote the other six months to campaign for the next election. They could not implement any fruitful programs or plans as they have a limited time in power,” he said.

The proposed new legislation would give a newly elected ex-co of a NSA an initial period of two years. “After that period, the Ministry will review their progress and if found satisfactory, they could continue for two more years without facing another election,” he said.

The Minister said that almost all previous Sports Ministers had mainly served their own districts and electorates, mostly with half-built stadia. “Most of them had not been able even to compete stadia built in their own electorates. I thought I must put an end to this and act nationally. With the blessings of the President, I could implement an island wide Program,” he said.

“I found all main resources are centred in and around Colombo. Poor but talented village youth who could not afford to come to Colombo perished in their villages. Hence, I thought to build a modern sports stadium complex in each of the nine provinces. For the next two levels of sportsmen and women, we will build 25 stadia at district level and another 325 at Divisional Secretariat level,” he said.

Construction of district level stadia in Matara, Gampaha, Batticaloa and Kalutara have already been launched while measures were underway to commence work on nine Provincial level Sports Complexes.

The Sports Minister said that raw talent is plenty in villages and that the country must tap those at tender age. “If we identify the talent in the provinces and groom them carefully for the future, Sri Lanka would not be staved of medals at international events,” he said.

Under the direction of Minister Aluthgamage, the Sports Ministry has organised formal training to sportsmen and women, prepared background to provide the sportsmen and women for local and international level sports while granting foreign training for sports officers and coaches. He also outlined the efforts taken by the Ministry to train local coaches using foreign coaches, organised workshops to provide new techniques to sports officers, conducting of sports conferences by local and foreign sports specialists and awarding of local and international sports scholarships.

“All these steps have been implemented as an investment for the future. We are targeting a strong national pool in every sport by 2018,” he pointed out.

The Sports Ministry-conducted 'Kreeda Shakthi' program will reach its peak when 1,080 talented youth in the 15-20 year age group selected at district level receive their sports scholarships from President Rajapaksa next month. “They will get a monthly allowance of Rs. 2,500/- each, in addition to nutrition supplements, food, residential training and exposure to top level local and overseas competition. They are our future medal winners and we will take full care of them,” he said.

“Until recently, our sports activities and the functions of the Sports Ministry had been confined to only two third of this country, the Northern and the Eastern provinces had been completely ignored as terrorism did not permit any sports activity. I have now deployed sports officers to those two provinces as well and we find rich talent from the North and the East too,” Minister Aluthgamage said. Under the direction of the Minister, fully equipped sports grounds have been developed in Kilinochchi and Batticaloa.

The Department of Sports Development has initiated another programme to register island wide coaches with the aim of uplifting the future of sports. “We want to streamline coaching and make it more methodical, provide opportunities for the coaches to enhance their knowledge regularly,” he said. The coaches representing all the sport in the country were identified and categorised to improve sports knowledge and sports techniques. The coaches will be provided with an identity card.

“More importantly, we were able to implement a national sports policy so that the sports administration of the country would stand unchanged, despite change of the Governments. The Ministry of Sports worked hard with dedication to introduce a National Sports Policy correct the sporting path. The National Sports Policy performs an important role in terms of providing the infrastructure for the local rural talent to come to international standards according to the Mahinda Chinthana policy as well as giving the leadership to instilling a national sports culture,” Minister Aluthgamage said.

The main objectives of this policy are to make all citizens of Sri Lanka a sports person. The draft of the National Sports Policy has been submitted to the Cabinet to acquire the cabinet approval.

The Cabinet approval has also been obtained to construct a new Sports Ministry Stadium Sports Complex at a cost of Rs.500 million at Reid Avenue, Colombo. It was scheduled to complete in by mid next year.

Minister Aluthgamage also noted that steps are under way to implement a Sports Degree programme with the assistance of the Cuban Government. The first phase of this programme will be initiated in 2012. Cuban coaches will be utilised in strengthening and developing the fields of sports in Sri Lanka. The Agreement in this regard was signed last year. Thanks to the untiring efforts of the Minister, the Sports Ministry has been able to develop a new sports culture and even extended their fitness programs to both public and public servants. A fitness program - 'Fit for Work', to improve the physical fitness of the government servants was implemented at the Sports Ministry.

Minister Aluthgamage has been instrumental in developing a better inter-ministerial relationship to develop sport.

“All this time, the Sports Ministry has been conducting its own programs while the Ministries of Education, Higher Education, Mahaweli and Youth Affairs ran their own sports programs. For the first time in the history of Sri Lanka sport, all these Ministries have joined hands to develop and coordinate sports related activities of the respective Ministries,” he added.