India is shifting from viewing sports as a leisure activity to treating it as a strategic national investment, with the National Sports Policy 2025 aiming to integrate sports with education, economy, health, and social development.

Rationale for Sports Investment

• Engine of Growth: Sports creates a population that is healthy, skilled, resilient, and confident, which is the “engine” of an advanced economy. 
• Legacy Planning: Hosting major events must focus on legacy planning, ensuring that the resulting infrastructure and investment lead to a lasting societal shift where sports become part of daily life.

The New National Sports Policy (NSP)2025

• Addressing Episodic Excellence: The challenge is moving beyond celebrating occasional victories to making sports an integral part of daily life.
• Ecosystem Focus: The NSP 2025 departs from earlier policies that emphasized elite talent and medals, instead focusing on developing the entire sports ecosystem across grassroots, education, and professional levels.
• Five Interconnected Pillars of NSP 2025:
  • Excellence: Achieving medals and top performance.
  • Education: Integrating sports with academic studies.
  • Mass Participation: Ensuring everyone plays.
  • Economic Growth: Creating jobs and wealth through sports.
  • Social Development: Improving society via sports.
• Sports and Physical Activity (SAPA): The policy introduces the term SAPA and advocates for its integration across various sectors:
  • Education: Sports periods must be taken seriously, not treated as free time.
  • Urban Planning: Playgrounds must be mandatory when constructing new cities.
  • Health Care: Doctors should prescribe 30 minutes of walking/physical activity.
  • Economic Policy Making: Sports funding must be properly budgeted.
• Public Good: Sports is defined as a Public Good that benefits everyone, and a force multiplier, where every rupee invested yields multiple returns in better health, stronger communities, and economic growth.

Economic Potential and Health Benefits

• Current Economic Status: Sports contribute just 0.1% to India’s GDP and 0.5% of total employment, compared to 1–6% of GDP and 4% job share in developed countries, highlighting significant growth potential.
• 2047 Target (Viksit Bharat): The goal is for sports to contribute 2% of GDP and create 4% of total jobs by 2047.
• Job Creation Areas: Major growth opportunities in sports include infrastructure, sports technology (data analytics, apps, fantasy leagues), gaming, manufacturing (equipment, apparel), services (fitness trainers, physiotherapists, nutritionists), and media (journalism, broadcasting).
• Combating the Silent Epidemic: Over 60% of deaths in India are due to Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) like diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Sports acts as essential preventive healthcare, combating lifestyle risks (obesity, screen time) and improving mental health (depression, anxiety).
• Financial Impact: If India becomes active, ₹15 lakh crore could be saved by 2047 in public health system costs.

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Implementation and Cooperative Federalism

• State Subject: Sports is a State Subject.
• Success Story: Odisha is cited as a prime example, having sponsored the hockey team, built world-class infrastructure (Kalinga Stadium), and hosted major events, demonstrating effective State leadership.
• Centre’s Role: The Central government should encourage states and provide funds, expertise, and training.
• Monitoring and Motivation: A National Index of Sports and Physical Activity (SAPA) should be developed to rank states on promoting sports, fostering cooperative federalism, and incentivizing continuous improvement across regions.
• Private Sector Necessity: Achieving the ambitious 2047 targets requires strong participation from the private sector, including academies (like JSW Sports, Reliance Foundation), Sports Tech startups, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives.

Conclusion

Investing in sports is not a cost but a strategic national investment that builds a healthier society and a stronger economy.

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