On October 12, via a half page newspaper advertisement that appeared in the Hindustan Times, the government of India disclosed the assistance provided towards the preparation of athletes for the 2010 Commonwealth Games.
The highlights of assistance provided are as follows:
- Government of India sanctioned 678 crores, over a period of 2 1/2 years for training, foreign exposure, sports and medical equipment, upgradation of training centres, as opposed to 40 crores per year earlier.
- 1140 players of 18 sports disciplines, trained by 170 Indian coaches and 30 foreign coaches.
- Indian Rupees 450/550 per day, per athlete, diet and food supplements provided, doubling past provisions.
- Air travel for all the sportspersons, including domestic travels in India, for coaching camps/competitions.
- 78 support personnel, i.e. sports analysts, doctors, physiologists, psychologists, physiotherapists, masseurs, exclusively attached with each team.
- 530 days of intensive training in India and 225 days of training and competition abroad.
- 3,760 players (repeat visits included) sent abroad for competition and training.
- 95 crores provided for participation of athletes in competitions and training abroad.
- For training and competitions abroad the following is breakdown for sports - 20 crores for 596 shooters, 6.7 crores for 411 badminton players, 5.9 crores for 365 wrestlers, 5.3 crores for 325 table tennis players, 3.9 crores for 278 athletes, 2.9 crores for 154 squash players, 2.9 crores for 233 tennis players, 2.8 crores for 187 archers, 1.5 crores for 116 boxers, 1.3 crores for 74 swimmers and other sports disciplines.
- state of the art shooting equipment worth 30 crores intalled at Karni Singh Shooting Ranges.
- ammunition worth 2.7 crores provided to shooters and 4 elite shooters provided about 2 crores each for training abroad.
- 10 training centres for Commonwealth teams upgraded to international standards.
- reward money to medal winners doubled.
So Dato Seri Shabery, do you care to disclose what our budget is for the 12 Commonwealth Games gold medal plus what we are targetting to win at the Asiad?
I am sure that it may well be much lower then the RM40 million on the three tennis events that your Ministry and Tourism forked out this year alone.
