Sangey Lhaden Sports Academy to be developed as KISCE

OUR CORRESPONDENT

ITANAGAR: Sangey Lhaden Sports Academy in Arunachal Pradesh has been named as one of the first eight Khelo India State Centre of Excellence (KISCE) under Sports Authority of India's flagship talent identification and nurturing programme, Khelo India.

The academy would be upgraded with a total budget of 11 cores in four years, to scale it up into a centre of excellence, an official communiqué informed here on Wednesday.

The support would be in the form of infrastructure upgradation, setting up of sports science centre and also soft component in the form of quality coaches and sports science human resources physiotherapists, strength and conditioning expert.

High quality equipments would also be provided to the players and the academy would also have a high performance manager to ensure quality sports science input and performance management system, the communiqué said.

The Sports Ministry is upgrading existing sporting infrastructure in each state and Union Territory in partnership with the state government and creating KISCEs with the aim to create a robust sporting ecosystem in the entire country.

Each KISCE would be extended sports-specific support in 14 Olympic sport of which one state or UT would be given support for a maximum of 3 sports, the communiqué said.

In the first leg, eight KISCEs have been identified, including the one in Arunachal Pradesh. The other KISCEs would be set up in Mizoram, Telengana, Manipur, Nagaland, Odhisha, Karnataka and Kerala.

Speaking about the decision to set up the KISCEs, Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Kiren Rijiju said, "These Center of Excellence are yet another step towards building a robust sports ecosystem and India's pursuit of excellence in Olympics."

"These state-of-the-art centres will ensure that athletes proficient in a certain sport can be given the highest level of training and these centers become the best facilities in the country to train athletes in the priority sport for which they have been earmarked. I am confident this step will help to further India's effort of becoming one of the top 10 countries in the Olympics in 2028."

The setting up of the KISCE will also help to broad-base talent identification, since the states and UTs will also identify and develop talent in each sport for which funding is received.

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