New Delhi, July 8: To improve and make better the government scheme of cash awards, welfare and pension to sportspersons, the government has introduced a new web portal through which sportspersons and other stakeholders can apply to benefit from the schemes. The revised scheme makes it possible for individual sportspersons and those who feel eligible for the awards to directly apply for the awards without going through the national sports federations. Union Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports, Anurag Singh Thakur on Friday launched the revised schemes of cash awards, national welfare and pension to sportspersons, web portal for schemes of the Department of Sports and National Sports Development Fund website. Sourav Ganguly, Dada, Dances on Famous 'London Thumakda' Song With Fans on his 50th Birthday (Watch Video).

Thakur informed that the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has brought out several important amendments to the Scheme of Cash Award to Medal Winners in International Sports Events and their coaches, Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay National Welfare for Sportspersons (PDUNWFS) and Pension to Meritorious Sportsperson Scheme of Department of Sports with a vision to make these schemes more user-friendly, easy to access and transparent. The minister hailed this development as another step towards Digital India by empowering citizens and reducing the gap between Government and citizens, system and facilities, problems and solutions and taking forward the vision of the Prime Minister of Minimum Government and Maximum Governance. These revised schemes will provide more transparency and accountability to give benefit to sports persons in record time, the Minister explained.

Thakur highlighted that now, any individual sportsperson can directly apply for all three schemes as per his/her eligibility. "Earlier the proposals were received through Sports Federations/SAI, which used to take a considerable time for submission of the proposals. Sometimes it used to take more than 1-2 years to approve the proposal. To ensure timely submission and subsequent approval of cash award, the applicant now needs to apply online for cash award scheme within six months from the last date of closing of the particular event," he added. The minister further informed that the verification process in all three schemes has been eased to a great extent to reduce the processing time. To ensure that the coach(es) get their cash award in a timely manner, required changes have been made in the scheme. Pension benefits have been extended to the athletes of the Deaflympics also. Shikhar Dhawan Reveals His Way of Winning in ODIs After Being Named As India Captain For West Indies Series.

"To implement the above features in these schemes, the Department of Sports has developed web portal dbtyas-sports.gov.in to facilitate sportspersons in applying to seek benefits under the above schemes of Department of Sports," he added. Thakur said that this online portal will facilitate real-time tracking of applications by the sportspersons and authentication through One Time Password (OTP) sent on their registered mobile number. Physical submission of applications by the applicants to the Ministry would now be no longer required. The portal has also been integrated with DBT-MIS which will enable the transfer of funds to the sportspersons directly into their bank accounts to fulfill the objectives of the DBT Mission of the Government of India.

Thakur further added that the portal will not only help the Department in quick disposal of all applications in a time-bound manner but will also be used to generate different types of required reports and data management of the sportspersons. The online portal would be further upgraded from time to time to suit the requirement of the sportspersons and the prevalent scenarios.

The Union Minister highlighted that the department has also developed a dedicated interactive website nsdf.yas.gov.in for the 'National Sports Development Fund' (NSDF). This Fund is based on CSR contributions from Central & State Governments, PSUs, private companies, and individuals, etc. for the promotion and development of sports in the country. Union Minister informed that individual, institution and corporate organizations can now directly contribute to players, sports facilities, and sports events through the portal. The NSDF corpus is used for Target Olympic Podium (TOP) scheme, Infrastructure development by eminent sportspersons and sports organizations, etc. "This dedicated website will provide easy and transparent access not only to the sportspersons but also to the CSR contributors. This website will help us in making NSDF a great success for the development of sports in the country," he added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jul 08, 2022 08:42 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).