India needs more coaches: Sports Minister

Union Sports Minister Anurag Singh Thakur believes India needs more coaches.

Speaking at a function by the SAI centre here to honour international athletes from the region on Monday, he said there was no shortage of athletes or stadia in the country, but a lot more coaches were needed.

“We are just creating stadium after stadium and indoor stadium after indoor stadium,” Thakur said. “We have 5,000 swimming pools in this country, but do we have 50 coaches for swimming?”

He said he had a tough time getting the data from the States after assuming charge as the Sports Minister.

“I had requested the States to send the list of the sports infrastructure and the availability of coaches, in each district,” he said. “That should have been a job of five minutes for any State, if they had actually been working on the promotion of sports at the ground level. It took me six to seven months to compile all the data from the States. Despite that, I didn’t have the full data available in this country.”

He said that the Khelo India programme was paying dividends and that it provided a stage for the athletes. He also spoke about the need for educational institutions to promote sports.

Former athletes from different sports, including P.T. Usha (athletics), Tom Joseph (volleyball) and K.P. Sethumadhavan (football), interacted with the minister.