The National Sports Development Fund (NSDF) of Department of Sports, Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports I, on Wednesday, September 14, 2022, in the presence of Union Minister of Youth Affairs & Sports, Anurag Singh Thakur and Union Minister of Power and New and Renewable Energy RK Singh, signed a historic Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with two Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) with NTPC (National Thermal Power Corporation) Foundation and REC (Rural Electrification Corporation) Foundation for development of sports in India.
As pe reports, the financial support to be given by NTPC is of INR 115 Crores, for over the next five years focused towards supporting Archery discipline in India. REC Foundation has also committed an amount of INR 100 Crores over three years to support Women’s Hockey, Athletics and Boxing. The support towards NSDF has come through their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) mandate.
CMD of REC Vivek Kumar Dewangan and CMD NTPC Gurdeep Singh, DG SAI Sandip Pradhan, as well as athletes and coaches from Archery, Boxing, Hockey and Athletics disciplines, including Abhishek Verma (Compound Archery), Savita Punia (Women's Hockey), Amit Panghal (Men's Boxing) and Avinash Sable (Men's 3000m Steeplechase) were also present on this occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Anurag Thakur said that two PSUs from the Power Ministry have contributed a total of Rs 215 crore for the development of sports, making it an historic occasion. This contribution by the Power Ministry will go a long way to energise the sports sector, he said.
"Everyone, from the corporates to individuals and from various institutions to States, should work together as a team. This MoU signing will give a big motivation to our athletes," Thakur mentioned, and futher added, "Earlier, I had urged online donations at NSDF, to adopt an athlete, a sport and an academy. Now, both NTPC and REC have adopted both sports and athletes. This has all happened because of the vision of the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi. There are many PSUs but the ones who come forward help in building soft power of India, help athletes keep away from addiction and also motivate them to perform higher at the international stage."
The support from NTPC and REC Foundation will cover Grassroots development of the sports, training of identified talent, training of elite talent, coach development, sports science support, advance training and more.
Elaborating on the MoU signed, RK Singh mentioned, "We from the Power Ministry are extremely happy to have done something for the further development of sports in India, through NTPC and REC. We have adopted just a few sports disciplines today but going forward, we want to adopt more disciplines and continue in the development of more facilities and coaches. We promise that our Ministry will be associated in doing all possible in further development of sports in the country. Creating sports culture in the country is part of Nation building."