An article titled “one dream, two worlds” in the latest issue of CPM mouthpiece People’s Democracy looks into the sports scenario in the country and compares it with that of Communist China. It says China had spent at least 2.3 million dollars to win one gold medal and carefully worked out a plan not only to successfully organise the Olympics, but also to emerge as a powerful sporting nation by supporting its athletes with the necessary monetary and training facilities. “Our sports officials exhibit lots of interest in bidding for organising mega sporting events but do not show even an iota of that in preparing our sportspersons for competing respectably in those events,” it says. “The absence of proper infrastructure and training facilities and their non-availability to the majority of our people is another important reason for our failure to produce medal winners. It is estimated that out of the 77 crore people below 35 years of age, only 5 crore or so have any access to organised sports and games, to the neglect of nearly 72 crore of our children, adolescents and youth,” it notes.

On the other hand, China has 37 per cent of its population actively participating in physical education and sports activities. There are over 3,50,000 popular sports instructors, over 40,000 grassroots level sports associations, 3854 urban community associations, 2000 community sports institutions, and over 1,00,000 part-time sports instructors, besides and incredible 6,20,000 sports facilities spread across the country, it says.

Instead of seriously undertaking a course correction in the Eleventh plan, the government has decided to limit its role in funding sports activities and go for an active involvement of the corporate sector in developing academies and centers of excellence for different disciplines. “What this really would mean is that only glamorous sports and sportspersons would be promoted as the market would be interested only in them and the other disciplines would be left to suffer,” it says.

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