Abhinav Bindra-led panel flags huge systemic gaps in Indian sports admin

NEW DELHI: Indian institutions that form the backbone of the country’s sport are understaffed, poorly coordinated and overly dependent on generalist civil servants or short-term contractual staff with limited sec -tor expertise, a govt-empowered nine-member task force headed by Abhinav Bindra has found.“This task force, based on the primary research that I conducted, concluded that both institutions – SAI and state sports departments – face deep systemic and capacity challenges that hinder professionalism, efficiency, and governance effectiveness. These gaps not only constrain the implementation of national policies but also weaken coordination with federations and other stakeholders, limiting India’s ability to build a modern, athlete-centric sports ecosystem,” Bindra, India’s first individual Olympic gold medallist, noted in his report. “India lacks a national institute or framework for sports administration and governance, leaving administrators without clear career pathways, competency benchmarks, or professional development oppor tunities,” Bindra’s panel added.It further said that ad-hoc decision-making, weak institutional memory and little longterm professionalisation led to a significant “structural gap and governance challenge” that hindered the growth of the sports ecosystem in the country, and that the current administrative set-up was limiting the nation’s ability to build a modern and athletecentric framework.The govt had, on July 30 last, formed a task force on “Capacity Building of Sports Administrators” under Bindra’s chairmanship “to design a futureready, sustainable, and professional governance system for Indian sport with a long-term ambition of becoming a top-10 sporting nation and a credible contender to host the 2036 Olympic Games”.The panel submitted its 170-page report on Tuesday to the sports ministry, highlighting “systemic deficits” across the Indian sports administration, from the ministry to Sports Authority of India (SAI), Indian Olympic Association (IOA), National Sports Federations (NSFs) and state sports departments, exhibiting “critical shortcomings in human resource planning, deployment, and institutional capacity”.