NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has proposed to slash the ministry of youth affairs and sports’ budget allocation for the current financial year by almost one-fourth due to low spending during the first half of the fiscal.

Sources told TOI that the sports department under the ministry could see its allocation reduced by over Rs 350 crore, while the reduction for youth affairs could be around Rs 139 crore.

While discussions for the revised estimates for the year are underway, the overall reduction could be of the order of Rs 490 crore against an allocation of Rs 2,196 crore – if the proposed reductions do take place.

According to data available with the Controller General of Accounts, the ministry had spent Rs 595 crore between April and September, which was 27% of the allocation. During the first half of 2017-18, the ministry had spent 47% of the funds earmarked to it.

Up to September this year, the capital expenditure or asset-generating spending was to the tune of Rs 20 lakh.

The ministry fears that the spending cut could hamper the preparations of the country’s sportspersons – who have excelled in the past year – for national and international meets.

TOI tried to contact sports minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore , sports secretary Rahul Bhatnagar and Sports Authority of India’s DG, Neelam Kapur, but got no response.

However, ministry sources said they are in the process of writing to the finance ministry to reconsider its decision. Apart from specific response to each count of proposed budget cuts, the ministry is also likely to argue that reduction in budget will adversely affect the Sport Authority of India (SAI) and National Sport Federations (NSF) capacity to fund athletes.

Several new scholarship schemes have been started by the sports ministry and a big chunk is spent on Khelo India.

Khelo India was launched in 2016 by merging three schemes – the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan , the Urban Sports Infrastructure Scheme and the National Sports Talent Search Programme. The programme aims to “revive the sports culture in India at the grass-root level by building a strong framework for all sports played in our country and establish India as a great sporting nation.”

In September 2017, the union government had approved Rs 1,756 crore for Khelo India. The amount allocated to it in 2017-18 budget was Rs 442.5 crore, which was increased to Rs 520.1 for 2018-19.

According to the documents accessed by TOI, SAI's budget has been reduced from Rs 429.56 crore to Rs 404.56 crore, a decrease of Rs 25 crore. The assistance budget to NSFs has been slashed from Rs 342 crore to Rs 269.94 crore, a cut of Rs 72.06 crore.

The biggest proposed cut is for Khelo India, whose budgetary allocation for the current fiscal year has been cut from Rs 520.09 crore to Rs 300.09 crore, a deduction of Rs 220 crore.

It’s been learnt that last year Rs 48 crore was spent on the conduct of the Khelo India in 16 disciplines. This time for the Pune edition to be held in January, the ministry intends to spend Rs 60 crore on 18 disciplines, while the Maharashtra government is spending close to Rs 40 crore on the upgradation of the infrastructure.

