In a bid to bring in more transparency and accountability, Union Minister for Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, Anurag Singh Thakur on Friday launched revised schemes of cash awards, national welfare and pension to sportspersons. Apart from this, web portal for schemes of Department of Sports (dbtyas-sports.gov.in) and National Sports Development Fund website (nsdf.yas.gov.in) have also been launched.
As per a release, several amendments have been made to 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 .
Hailing the initiatives, Thakur said, “These revised schemes will provide more transparency and accountability to give benefit to sports persons in record time.
” According to Thakur, any individual sportsperson can directly apply for all three schemes as per his/her eligibility. “Earlier proposals were received through Sports Federations/SAI, which used to take 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, applicant now needs to apply online for cash award scheme within six months from the last date of closing of the particular even,” he added.
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 Deaflympics also.
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.
Through this online portal, real time tracking of applications by the sportspersons and authentication through One Time Password (OTP) sent on their registered mobile number can be done. Physical submission of applications by the applicants to the Ministry would now be no longer required.