TRANSFER GAMES ‘DEFEAT’ SPORTS DEPARTMENT!

Jaipur: An abysmal situation exists in the Department of Sports and Youth Affairs and in the past one year, the department has become a ‘football’ as 4 secretaries of the department have been changed between January 2021 to January 2022.

Prior to January 2021, Bhaskar Sawant played a ‘glorious’ 3 years long innings in the department as while executing his original roles in DoP and UDH, he held the additional charge of the department and it was during his tenure that he successfully organized the National Sports in Jaipur in the year 2020.

However, the bad days of the department began with the arrival of Dinesh Kumar Yadav as Secretary in January 2021.

Yadav had only begun to work on the motivational schemes for players and athletes; two sports schools in Jaipur and Jodhpur and an excellence centre set up for Rs 18 crore and even took the approval of CM, however, 4 months into the posting, he was transferred.

Thereafter, Sitaram Vikas Bhale was appointed as the new Secretary of the department but due to clashes with Sports and Youth Affairs minister Ashok Chandna, he could stay in the department for merely 6 months, and thereafter in November 2021, Principal Secretary PWD Rajesh Yadav was given the additional charge of the Sports department.

But merely 2 months later, this charge was taken from Yadav, and now, recently on January 16, through the new transfer list, Secretary Finance Naresh Thakral has been given the additional charge of the sports department.

Notably, the budget of this department has been upscaled to Rs 150 crore from the paltry sum of Rs 50 crore previously.

It is beyond Naresh Thakral’s abilities to not only organize a major programme like ‘Gramin Sports’ but also to give shape and final delivery to new schemes and work.

If the state government is not of the opinion that a full-time Secretary should be appointed, then the additional charge should be given to an officer who has less workload.

It seems once minister Ashok Chandna takes the matter seriously, along with DoP, will some forward motion occur.