In the backdrop of Unmukt Chand’s college controversy, the Indian Olympic Association on Saturday urged the government to treat sports excellence on a par with academic excellence and formulate a uniform policy to prevent recurrence of such incidents in future.
IOA acting president Vijay Kumar Malhotra, while welcoming Delhi University’s decision to allow the India U-19 World Cup-winning captain to continue his course at St College, said if there had been a proper policy in place this sort of situation would not have arisen.
“This case to case approach is not going to help the sports persons or solve the problem,” Malhotra said in a statement, adding that it was also wrong to call Unmukt’s case a “rarest of rare cases” because there are hundreds of such cases involving not only sportspersons in schools and collages but also those who are employed.
Many collages had earlier barred young cricketers and other sportspersons from taking the BA first-year examination because of poor attendance.
Malhotra said it is strange that while government says that sports should become a part of the curriculum, there is no proper policy as how to implement it.
He said that it has been a long-standing demand of the IOA that the Sports Ministry should have a proper policy, dealing with such issues, which keep cropping up on regular basis.
Mr. Malhotra demanded that all the sportspersons, students and employees, who are either in coaching camps or taking part in the national championship or representing the country in the International competitions, should be treated as on duty.
“It does no good to the morale of sportspersons if they have to go asking for special leave every time they attend a camp or play for the country at home or abroad,” he said.
PTI
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