IAS Gyan

Daily News Analysis

Target Olympic Podium Scheme

14th December, 2021 Polity

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.