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Pinki Pramanik Case: What does Sports Authority of India has to say?

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SAI

_{Published by: Arslan Sharif}
^{Published on: Fri, 15 Jun 2012 at 13:38 IST}

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Kolkata: Commonwealth Games (Melbourne 2006)
Silver: 4×400 m relay

Asian Games (Doha 2006)
Gold: 4×400 m relay

Asian Indoor Games (Pattaya 2005)
Gold: 4×400 m relay

South Asian Games (Colombo 2006)
Gold: 400 metres
Gold: 800 metres
Gold: 4×400 m relay

This is the career of Pinki Pramanik, who till yesterday was a female athlete, until she, rather we can say he was accused of rape charges by a woman on Thursday, June 14, 2012. It not only questions the actual sex identity of the athlete but even questions the Sports Authority of India on several grounds.

SAI garnishes several billion of Indian currency over such players and boasts of improvised facilities. It also promises to have brought modern technology to support the cause but all seems to be hanging in vain. Such lewd incidents only tend to weaken the image of the country, when it comes to sports.

The sports authority is now surfacing as a medium that hurts the national prestige in one way or the other. The recent report gives a panorama view of how good is the criteria of selection & various other procedures of conducting training, is applied and undertaken. Pinki, who competed in female athletics, is actually a male, comes as a shock. It clearly shows that there are innumerable loopholes in the body handling the sports activities.

Rape charges over Pinki is a secondary thing, primarily, the most important thing is that how Pinki skipped physical check-ups and was able to hide her identity or was it the sleaziness among officials at different levels that helped him/her get through the standard tests and acquire permission to perform at games.

SAI is provided crores of rupees every year, to forefront and meet the demands of the changing scenario. In the name of infrastructure, equipment, coaching facilities and competition exposure, the authorized personnel are taking advantage of the economic sustainability that SAI receives, despite of such provisions and despite India being one of the highest in populations, India lacks good sportsmen and therefore is witnessed to be ranked lowest in most of the games.

Till now, only a handful of players have been able to compete at a global level, lesser have bagged any medals or trophies and the others who are left, hog the limelight for all the wrong reasons. Often Indian players are caught for doping. Medicines and drugs (having therapeutic significance) given to players by the ministry, time and again have surfaced as doping drugs and brought shame to the nation, players are not to be blamed entirely for this. Apparently, coaches too, do not have any idea as to which drug to use and which not to.

It is obvious that grants sanctioned to the Sports Authority of India are not utilized well as we have very few institutes providing sports training facility, resulting to which, other than cricket, sports is not taken seriously in India. Smaller countries like Japan, Jamaica, Kenya, Australia and many more give power-packed performance and stands manifold when compared to India.

The need here is to put up an inquiry over the board (SAI) to bring up matters in a lucid form. An investigation must be set-up to mark where the breach is being committed and why such episodes take place?