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Ministry upset at BAI’s stance

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Even as it explored ways of bringing the National badminton camp back to life, the Union Sports Ministry on Friday tried to explain its role in funding National Sports Federations and claimed that the federations should not take equipment support from the Union Government as their right.

The National camp in Panjim, Goa, in preparation of the Indian teams for the Thomas Cup and Uber Cup qualifiers was cancelled because of shortage of shuttlecocks, with the Badminton Association of India (BAI) putting the blame squarely on the Sports Authority of India (SAI) for the “fiasco”.

A Sports Ministry spokesman, while admitting that there could have been lapses on the part of SAI, claimed on Friday that the BAI could have salvaged the situation had it made its own efforts to procure the shuttlecocks weeks ahead of the start of the Panjim camp.

He also claimed that there was little need for the BAI to go through further formalities when it knew, through a letter from the ministry, that it could procure equipment and get the money reimbursed.

The spokesman explained that federations had their “entitlement” in respect of equipment support, but it was “not a right”. Of course, he agreed that for national camps there was to be hundred per cent reimbursement for “consumables”.

The BAI, the spokesman said, had been one of the foremost beneficiaries of the ‘75-25 per cent scheme’ in which the Government paid the major share for equipment support with the federations chipping in with their contributions. He said that in 2002-2003 the BAI was given Rs. 46 lakh, in 2004-2005 another Rs. 47 lakh and in 2006-2007 a part payment of Rs. 35 lakh was paid.

He wondered whether the BAI could have exhausted all the stock of shuttles (7000 dozen shuttles in 2006-2007) that was available to it during the previous year.

Remiss

The spokesman clarified that the BAI had not submitted a detailed, technical assessment of the avian flu-related ban on import of shuttles and the necessary details about the Yonex shuttles so as to enable the Sports Ministry take up the matter of clearance with the ministries concerned.

Clearly upset with the manner in which the BAI had gone about levelling charges in the aftermath of the “shuttle controversy”, the spokesman said that the federation could have approached the ministry if it found that SAI was unresponsive.

When contacted, BAI President V.K. Verma reiterated his earlier statement that DG, SAI and the ministry was informed about the critical situation of shuttle stock several weeks earlier.

He also said that the previous stocks of shuttlecocks meant for distribution to states, as per a quota system, were exhausted.

“I am told the SAI has so far been able to locate around 21 boxes of shuttles. I have told Gopi Chand (National coach) that if we can have around 250 to 300 boxes then he can have a camp for about a week,” Mr. Verma said.

As for the communication from the Badminton World Federation regarding Yonex shuttles, Mr. Verma clarified that it was not from its President but from Deputy President Punch Gunalan. A copy of that letter had been given to the Secretary, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, and Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, during the past 48 hours, he said.

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