Plans To Make India Global Sporting Superpower In Place Since COVID Crisis: Mansukh Mandaviya

Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday asserted that India will be among the world's top-five sporting nations by 2047, revealing that the roadmap to achieve this was worked out amid the upheaval caused by COVID-19 three years ago.

Mandaviya said sports is a focus area in the government's ambitious plan to turn India into a superpower by 2047.

"When the country was under COVID-19 lockdown, the government was brainstorming for 2047, making a roadmap for 2047. One of the components of that roadmap is sports," Mandaviya said during a panel discussion on India's preparations for Paris Olympics.

The discussion was organised by the Delhi Sports Journalists Association in collaboration with the Sports Authority of India.

"Our government has set a target that in 2047, when we are a developed country, we also need to be among the top five in sports. If we don't have a pathway, we will not know whether we can achieve the target or not.

"During the COVID crisis, I have been witness to all that planning," he asserted.

Mandaviya was the union health minister during the pandemic and was widely praised for overseeing the roll-out of the vaccines to battle the virus in early 2021.

The minister said with the kind of diversity India has, it has huge potential to be a superpower in sports.

"This is such a diverse country where we have a lot of potential. We have been blessed with a lot of potential. There is unlimited talent, the only thing is giving opportunity to them.