Budget 2019 | SAI, Khelo India offered support after sports budget increases by Rs 200 crore

The government on India issued the budget for the 2019-20 financial year on Friday which caused a lot of stir on social media with its radical changes and interesting allocation of government funds across various sectors. However, sportspersons in the country will be relieved to find out that the budget announced by Finance Minister, Piyush Goyal, offered Rs 200 crore to the sports budget for the ongoing annual year.

In the interim budget presented by Goyal, the overall sports budget for 2019-2020 was increased from Rs 2002.72 (2018-2019) crore to Rs 2216.92 crore. The biggest institutions to benefit from the recent change in sports budget are SAI, the National Sports Development Fund, and the governing body in-charge of compensating sportspersons.

The budget allocation to SAI has been increased by Rs 55 crore. The SAI is the central organisation to manage nationals camps, provide equipment and other logistics to the country’s sportspersons. Meanwhile, the annual budget of the NSDF has increased from Rs 2 crore to Rs 70 crore.

The finance minister also proposed an increase in the incentive fund for the sportspersons, from Rs 63 crore to Rs 89 crore. In addition to all this, the overall encouragement and awards to sportspersons saw an increase of Rs 94.07 crore. The previous allocation was earlier at Rs 316.93 crore but will now increase to Rs 411 crore.