31 August,2011 09:51 AM IST | | Agencies
The Cabinet yesterday did not clear the proposed sports bill that aimed at ushering transparency and accountability in the functioning of national sports organisations and bringing them under the purview of the Right to Information Act.
The cabinet decided not to table the National Sports Development Bill in this session of parliament and asked Sports Minister Ajay Maken to rework the bill.
Sports Minister Ajay Maken
At the cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, five cabinet ministers were presentu00a0-- Sharad Pawar, Praful Patel, CP Joshi, Farooq Abdullah and Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Under the bill, all sport federations would have been covered by the RTI Act and all the sport federations would need to submit their audited reports to parliament.
The bill sought to reserve at least 25 per cent of federation posts for former players and puts an upper age limit of 70 on all administrators.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has traditionally been outside the government's purview and, unlike other national sports federations, does not receive state funding.
One of the minister had strong reservation on the age restriction clause and said it was a very subjective issue. The IOA and several other NSF said it was an attempt to interfere in the functioning of the bodies.
