Ministry of Sports will create 20 National Centres of Excellence (NCE) in order to groom athletes for the 2024 and 2028 Olympics. Every Centre of Excellence will designate funds for four to six specific sports.
The new scheme will ensure that athletes in the same premises have access to similar facilities unlike before.
"Standardising the training on a campus will enable athletes to attain much higher performances in their respective sport. When athletes of the same level train at a centre and the facilities are made exclusively available to them, they will train better and results will show. We are working in close coordination with National Sports Federations to ensure a smooth transition of our existing facilities into National Centre of Excellence and to identify more centres," said Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju.
After this move, the grassroots level athletes will be trained at other SAI facilities and will be moved to NCE depending on performance and possibility of an Olympic medal.
The 20 SAI facilities that have been identified as National Center of Excellence include, SAI centres in Patiala, Trivandrum, Chandigarh, Sonepat, Lucknow, Guwahati, Imphal, Kolkata, Bhopal, Bengaluru, Mumbai and Gandhinagar, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Delhi, Indira Gandhi Stadium, Delhi, Major Dhyan Chand National Stadium, Delhi, Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range, Delhi, Dr. Shyama Prasad Mookherjee Swimming Pool Complex, Delhi, National Water Sports Academy (Khelo India), Alleppey, National Boxing Academy (Khelo India), Rohtak, National Wrestling Academy (Khelo India), Aurangabad.
( With inputs from ANI )