Jindal showers praise on new Sports Policy 2007

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New Delhi, Aug 22: Member of Parliament and national shooter Naveen Jindal has lauded the Sports Policy 2007, saying it will ''transform India into a leading sporting nation''.

''The policy aims to adopt a new holistic approach covering most of the essential ingredients such as mass participation/broad basing, development of excellence and creation of sports infrastructure from Panchayat to national level,'' Mr Jindal said in a statement.

''The new policy is keen to revamp SAI and national sports federations and IOA by asking them to hold competitions regularly, pick up a large pool of talent and nurture them scientifically.

''The policy suggests improving training of coaches and in turn improving training and coaching of sports persons,'' the statement added.

He said the sports minister ''was pragmatic by suggesting that promising international medal prospects would be hand picked and given complete and continuous sport in terms of state of the art training facilities, the best coaches, trainers and meeting their proper nutritional standards''.

Mr Jindal said he would support the sports minister in the latter's effort ''to address the issue of inequality in access and opportunity in sports and games and encourage state governments to do the same in association with Panchayati Raj Institutions, Municipalities etc.'' He hoped the draft policy would be approved by the Union Cabinet and the Parliament and implemented soon so that it starts showing its impact from 2010 Asian Games, Commonwealth Games and 2012 London Olympics.

UNI