The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Pargat Singh, Congress MLA from Punjab and former captain of the Indian Hockey Team, has alleged discrimination in the allocation of funds for Punjab and Haryana for Paris Olympics’ athletes.
Taking to X (formerly, Twitter), Singh wrote, “Despite sending 48 athletes to the Paris Olympics, Punjab and Haryana received Rs 78 crore and Rs 66 crore, respectively, while UP and Gujarat, sending only 9 athletes, got Rs 438 crore and Rs 426 crore. Is this not a biased distribution? How long will the BJP continue this discrimination against states?”
The Jalandhar Cantonment MLA also shared a list of state and Union territory-wise details of funds released for the development of sports infrastructure under the Union government’s Khelo India Scheme.
Of the Rs 2,168.78 crore released under the scheme, the lion’s share of funds went to both Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states of Uttar Pradesh (Rs 438 crore) and Gujarat (Rs 426 crore). On the other hand, Punjab only secured Rs 78.02 crore and Haryana Rs 66.59 crore.
However, of India’s 117-member Olympic contingent, Punjab accounts for 19 athletes and Haryana 24 athletes – the largest in terms of state-wise contribution. On the other hand, there are only two athletes from Gujarat and seven from Uttar Pradesh who are participating in the Olympics in Paris.
The Union government this year has allocated Rs 3,442.32 crore for the sports ministry. The lion’s share of the sports budget has been allocated to Khelo India, which is the current government’s flagship programme for promoting grassroots-level sports.
Compared to the previous year’s budget of Rs 3,396.96 crore for the sports ministry, it has seen a slight increase of Rs 45.36 crore this year. Similarly, the budget for Khelo India has been hiked by Rs 20 crore.