Target Olympic Podium Scheme
Context:
- A total of 148 athletes, including 20 new inductees, in seven Olympic disciplines and six Paralympic disciplines have been identified for support under the Target Olympic Podium Scheme.
About the Scheme:
- In order to improve India’s performance at Olympics and Paralympics, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports started the Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) in September 2014.
- This was revamped in April 2018 to have a technical support team for managing the TOPS athletes and providing holistic support.
- It provides support forOlympic Games and Paralympic Games including foreign training, international competition, equipment and coaching camp besides monthly stipend of Rs.50,000/- for each athlete.
- Target is high priority category of sports discipline has been identified to put focus on and incentivize those sports disciplines played in the Olympics in
- It covers the junior and sub-junior athletes also.
- It is a dynamic exercise, wherein review of performance is done periodically fixing targets and intermediate milestones for individual athletes; and the sportspersons who fail to achieve the targets despite providing additional support and adequate time are dropped from the scheme.