NSC awaits final nod

The finance ministry is all set to allocate Tk 20 crore to 33 national sports federations including football and cricket to launch training programmes at the grassroots level for talented athletes, informed a National Sports Council (NSC) official yesterday.

The allocation, which is believed to be the biggest for the purpose of training, is waiting for the final approval from the finance ministry after scrutiny committee of the ministry okayed the allocation under three packages a few weeks ago.

“The programmes have been designed by the finance ministry, which asked the sports ministry to place a training budget for different national sports federations. And we have placed an estimated budget of Tk 20 crore for training after summing the amounts the 33 federations demanded for this purpose,” said NSC planning and development director Narayan Chandra Debnath at his office yesterday.

Out of the 33 federations, six have demanded over Tk one crore each while nine federations have placed budgets worth more than Tk 50 lakh for one year. The Football federation demanded highest Tk 1.39 crore followed by athletics (Tk 1.20 crore), cricket (Tk 1.04 crore), handball (Tk 1.03 crore), archery (Tk 1.02 crore) and wushu (Tk 1 crore).

“Though the scrutiny committee okayed three programs initially, we are not sure whether the finance committee of the ministry will allocate the budget the federations have demanded,” said Debnath, adding that they would form a strong monitoring committee to oversee training activities of the federations if the budget gets the final approval.

“I can't remember whether the finance ministry ever asked the national federations for training budget. I think such initiatives will help small federations continue their training programmes round the year as most of them are confined to holding national meets due to the financial constraints,” said Bangladesh Handball Federation's general secretary Asaduzzaman Khohinoor, who is also member secretary of the national sports federations' forum.

Though the NSC is seemingly focused on construction works rather than giving emphasis on training, it is irregularly conducting two programmes -- training at the grassroots and non-residential training for under-18 athletes – from its own fund.