Sports can be significant in driving economy and fuel business in India, says MoS Jayant Chaudhary

Bengaluru, March 16 (IANS) Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) and MoS for Education Jayant Chaudhary stressed that the role of sports can be significant in driving the economy and fuelling business in the nation.  

Chaudhary was speaking on the second day of the RCB Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit at the Padukone Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence. He mentioned how the Indian sports goods market is estimated to grow from USD 3.9 billion in 2020-21 to a whopping USD 6.6 billion by 2027.

“Sporting goods manufacturing is already a viable business employing more than 5,00,000 people in India. When you look on the education side also, there are green shoots. The state of Uttar Pradesh is the first one to set up a sports university.

"Telangana also has plans - they've announced plans to create a sports university. What that does is it creates avenues and jobs for retired sports persons and coaches to seek that. There's already a centre of excellence at IIT Madras for sports analytics and science. There's a lot of green shores there, a lot more job opportunities and also, small businesses can thrive," he said.

He also delved into how India’s New Education Policy of 2020 is integrating sports into the formal curriculum as the nation strives towards becoming a Sports Forward Nation.

“Now we have a progressive policy, the National Education Policy 2020, which understands that you need to give a lot of freedom and exposure and that it needs to be a multidisciplinary approach. You need to suss out the talent, equity in access to school children of all ages."

"Let them understand what their talent is, what really drives them and give them that capacity to innovate and think out of the box. Once we have that policy structure, which is so progressive, it enables us to really build sports into the formal curriculum,” said Chaudhary.

Later in the day, Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary of Industries & Commerce and IT Departments of the Telangana Government shed light on how the speed of decision-making can help accelerate India’s sports growth.

“One of the internal benchmarks that we have created for ourselves is that every decision will be taken at maximum at two levels, and it'll not take more than a fortnight to respond to. And we have done away with all the red tape,” he said while asserting that he is aiming to enable a sporting revolution in the state of Telangana.

With India gunning for the rights to host the 2036 Olympics, Prashanth Shawn Doss of Elevate spoke about how the nation has tremendous potential to unlock its true potential in terms of sports infrastructure.

“The strengths are we've got an enormous community here that is so passionate and ready and excited for change. Everyone has a vision of what India can be and will be with the right infrastructure in place. You have a great economy, great people, great ambition, and now you have a moment to figure out the fan experience at the venues and take India to the next level,” he said.

The RCB Innovation Lab Indian Sports Summit was a raging success, and the event was wrapped up with a fireside chat with world cricketing and RCB legend Virat Kohli, who elaborated on his thoughts on how India could shape into a massive sports-forward nation.