Odisha Budget 2023: Rs 1,217 Crore Allocated To Sports and Youth Services

Bhubaneswar: Sports has been one of the priority sectors of the Government over the last decade. With an aim to give a fillip to the sports sector in the state, the Government has over the past few years significantly enhanced the budgetary allocation dedicated to infrastructure development, coaching, competitions and hosting major sporting events.

The budget of Sports and Youth Services Department has been increased by almost 8 times from Rs.149 crore in 2017-18 to Rs. 1217 crore in 2023-24.

Creation of a robust and quality sports infrastructure constitutes a key component in the Government’s long-term strategy for promoting sports. Keeping that in view, the Department in the past few years has been consistently focusing to provide good quality sports infrastructure at various levels in the State for multiple sports disciplines. An amount of Rs.1044 crore has been allocated for development of different sports infrastructure in the State. Odisha is one of the few states which is investing in sports at this scale.

Scientific training and coaching by professional coaches help the sports persons to make the best use of their abilities and techniques so that the chances of success in competition are increased. A sum of Rs. 30 crores has been earmarked for training and coaching under different sports disciplines.

The State has received national and global accolades for successfully organizing various national and international sporting events in the state. The Department co-hosted FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2022 and successfully hosted the FIH Hockey Men’s World Cup for the second time in a row. A sum of Rs. 24 crores has been allocated for organizing various Sports Competition.

In order to encourage the sports persons of the State and to motivate them for winning medals at various national and international sports competitions Rs 10 crore has been provisioned under the scheme “Incentives and Awards”.