India had a poor run in the Rio Olympics 2016 clinching just 1 silver and 1 bronze. The Indian Olympic Association sent the nation's largest ever delegation (a total of 117 athletes; 34 larger than their previous record of 83 athletes in 2012) in Summer Olympic history.
A recent statistic released by the government states that two out of every five elementary schools in India are devoid of a basic playground which violates one of the ten norms mandated under the Right to Education Act. (RTE)
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A new survey for the (District Information System for Education or DISE) released only this week emphasises at the disastrous state of affairs of the worlds largest education system. The survey covered 1.5 million primary schools in 680 districts across the states catering to 19 crore children.
Bihar ranks last in the country with even less than one-third of the schools in the state having a playground. West Bengal also cuts a sad sight with only an overall of 40% elementary schools offering a ground to its pupils, as stated by the National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NUEPA).
Maharashtra and Punjab, on the contrary, have stood out in the survey suggesting more concentrated focus on sports and physical well-being of its students. Punjab has an overwhelming 97 percent schools in the state having ground facilities while Maharashtra shows 87 percent of its institutions do have playgrounds.
India has looked like a miser while spending on the development of sportspersons spending just 3 paise a day for a person while the US spends a whooping Rs 22 a day per person, the UK 50 paise a day and even Jamaica paying more than India with 19 paise a day.
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"While medal winning countries focus on early training, high technology, state-of-the-art equipment, sports medicine, we are not even allowing such a large number of kids to play. Lack of sports not only compromises on their growth and fitness, physically and mentally both, but they also lose out on other crucial life skills such as team building, leadership, managing their own anger and failures and communication skill," the former hockey player Mir Ranjan Negi was quoted by DNA.
Both these instances are complementary and India's poor show at the Olympics can greatly be accounted by the lack of proper infrastructure in the country, much required for the growth and development of sports and sportspersons at the grassroots levels.
