SportsBoxing
Indian Oil to put ₹40 crore into Indian boxing over two years
The money, routed through the National Sports Development Fund, will pay for academies, coaching, sports science and foreign exposure for boxers after a three-gold Asian Games.
Key points
- Indian Oil signed an agreement to invest ₹40 crore over two years in boxing.
- The money goes through the National Sports Development Fund and the Sports Authority of India.
- Indian boxers won six medals, three of them gold, at the Asian Games.
Indian Oil Corporation will invest ₹40 crore over the next two years in Indian boxing, under an agreement with the National Sports Development Fund and the Sports Authority of India announced on Wednesday.
The money is meant to cover the whole pathway: spotting talent, training and coaching, sports science, boxing academies, and trips abroad so that Indian boxers get more international competition. Part of it will go to building up coaches, referees and technical officials.
The agreement was signed in the presence of Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, Sports Secretary Hari Ranjan Rao, Boxing Federation of India president Ajay Singh and Indian Oil’s director of human resources, Rashmi Govil.
Mandaviya said the government was “deepening collaboration with corporate partners” under the revamped Khelo India scheme, and that “CSR-backed partnerships like this will help build a truly national sports ecosystem”. He added that money on its own would not build a lasting boxing programme, and that equipment, training centres, sports science, talent scouting and the development of coaches and officials all needed investment.
The deal follows a change that made sports one of the themes under the Department of Public Enterprises’ common framework for corporate social responsibility spending by state-run companies. The National Sports Development Fund, set up by the government in 1998, already backs athletes, infrastructure, coaching, equipment and foreign exposure.
The timing suits the sport. Indian boxers came home from the Asian Games in Japan with six medals, three gold and three bronze, among them Lovlina Borgohain, who ended a 12-year wait for a women’s boxing gold.