Ministry makes committee to examine suggestions on Sports Bill

NEW DELHI: The Sports Ministry today constituted a committee under Justice (retd) Mukul Mudgal and comprising, among others, badminton legend Prakash Padukone to examine suggestions on the National Sports Development Bill and make recommendations to fine-tune the draft.

"Sports Ministry has constituted a Committee under the chairmanship of Justice Mukul Mudgal, retired Chief Justice of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana, to examine, in details, the comments and suggestions received from various quarters and make appropriate recommendations to fine-tune the draft National Sports Development Bill," the Ministry said in a statement.

The other members of the committee are retired athlete Ashwini Nachappa, Jhanja Tripathi (Secretary and Executive Director of Railways Sports Promotion Board), a yet-to-be-named representative of the Indian Olympic Association and Joint Secretary of Sports Department, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

It will have to make its recommendations within two weeks.

In February, the ministry had posted the Preliminary Exposure Draft on the proposed bill and invited all stakeholders, including sports bodies, sportspersons and the general public to submit their comments and suggestions on the within 30 days.

"A large number of responses have been received on the Preliminary Exposure draft," the ministry said.

The committee will "examine all comments and suggestions received, from both sports governance and legal angle. It will make specific recommendations on each comments/suggestion with specific reference to sports administration, sports development and welfare of sportspersons."

The committee will also comment on "role delineation between the Government, the National Olympic Committee, National Sports Federations, Sports Authority of India and others. Besides, it will make "recommendations on incentivizing good governance in sports."