PM Narendra Modi’s Olympic Task Force: Replace government officers in SAI with professionals

The Olympic Task Force has recommended major transformation of the Sports Authority of India (SAI). It has called for replacing the bureaucrats with qualified professionals and also giving the authority complete financial autonomy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had formed the special committee last year after India’s dismissal performance at the 2016 olympics in Rio De Janeiro.

The task force has urged that it should be mainly responsible for running the academies of excellence.

This idea has been proposed to improve India's performance at the Olympics.

The eight-member committee has submitted a final 144 page report to the government. Olympians Abhinav Bindra, Viren Rasquinha and Pullela Gopichand were part of the team which submitted the report.

As per the report, professionals and specialists should be appointed instead of government officers.

The report also stated that full financial autonomy should be given to SAI. The authority must also be allowed to raise resources for running various programs.

It will be the Prime Minister Office (PMO) and the Ministry of Sports who will implement the recommendations of the committee.

The task force has recommended a complete overhaul of SAI.

It has been constituted to provide suggestions to improve India’s performance at the 2020, 2024 and 2028 Olympics.

The report has suggested that sportspersons should be regarded active only till the age of 28. Later on, they can be reskilled either as a coach or referee based on their national ranking.

The task force has suggested that tax should be exempted for the first five years for different IPL-style leagues.