 "Need to incentivise school-level sporting achievements in a big way: OP Singh")
OP Singh, a senior IPS officer and Former Haryana Sports Director, the man behind PIE (Participation, Inclusion & Excellence) model of sports promotion that he popularized in the state had a nationwide echo. An innovation-documenting quarterly featured his iconic program SPAT, aimed at attracting children to playground, as "an outstanding innovation that can change India".
He is also best-selling author of "Say Yes to Sports", a book that he describes as a decode of business ecosystem for anyone keen on delivering innovation in India. Dr Shashi Tharoor, the eminent scholar and former Union Human Resource Development Minister, has hailed the effort as "a remarkable book" that can "spark a revolution in school sports across the country".
In a candid interview with Vijay C Roy, spoke his mind on role of sports in India's development. Excerpts:
The state has traditionally been good in sports. In countryside, jobs in Armed, Paramilitary & Police Forces may be the initial reason for youth taking to sports. But as things progressed, competitive spirit seems to have taken over. In a nutshell, it was like people had reasons to play, government was favorably inclined as sports associations and political formation overlapped and sports department had the necessary structural strength to play its role in turnaround waiting to happen.
Kindly brief us the program initiated by you? How it helped the Children of the state?
The desire to reciprocate to the government's trust in me motivated me to try hard. Government wanted children to take to sports, disabled and people from weaker section to feel encouraged to play and career sportspersons to excel. A sports scholarship program SPAT (Sports & Physical Aptitude Test), putting premium on basic physical abilities like running, jumping, throwing and stretching, attracted millions to ground in a sustainable, structured manner and went on to become iconic.
We successfully encouraged and enabled more from underprivileged section of society to pursue a career in competitive sports with FAIRPLAY (Funding Athleticism in Reserved category) scholarship program. We gave paralympic athletes complete parity with general athletes in terms of opportunities and incentives.
For career sportspersons, we simply made their achievement worth their toil with a decisive, class-breaking incentive architecture - civic reception, humongous cash award and officer-rank jobs in the government. We complemented our efforts aimed at making sports attractive and aspirational with more competitive opportunities and better sports infrastructure at grass root level.
How SPAT helped in reaching out to kids studying in remotest corner?
SPAT's simplicity is perhaps its biggest strength. It gave kids an opportunity to stand out if they could just run faster, jump higher, throw farther and stretch further. It required no pre-training as just anybody could do it and involved no red-tape as scholarships reached qualifiers account directly.
SPAT managed to attract the usually sports-averse middle and higher middle class as it was a scholarship program. It enjoyed high popular credibility as it had a transparent procedure - it was multistage, held out in the open before thousands of anxious parents and teachers and was almost temper-proof.
Can you please let us know your achievements as Sport Director during the period? Do the programme initiated by you has helped Haryana sportperson to make their mark at National or International level?
It is tempting to personalize achievements but any success has foundation in conducive work conditions and significant others believing in you. As a government, we did remarkably well in branding ourselves as a credible change agent. We had hit upon PIE (Participation, Inclusion & Excellence) model of sports promotion and it was working.
With our performance-linked Employment Guarantee & Assured Cash Prize Scheme, we have successfully addressed those worries. Now a player know what exactly he needs to is to just go out and beat the guy standing opposite to him in the game in his chosen game. A medal in Olympics assures the winner of a rousing civic reception, crores of rupees as cash award and a Class I officer job in the government.
Medal winners in Asian and Commonwealth Game similarly stand to get feted along with Class II & III jobs in the government and cash award good enough to get them a class lift. No surprise, Haryana's share in national contingent for Olympic, Asian & Commonwealth Games has shot up, number of state's players actually winning medals in such events has increased.
Our imaginative incentive architecture has enthused people of age groups - from children to champion athletes masters - to take to competitive sports and make a serious bid to actually win.
What are the things to be done in Haryana to promote sports further?
We have all the right ideas. These have been found working, too. Having a good team in place, keeping them well-funded and holding them accountable is absolutely critical. Government will do well by saying schools to educate parents about the need of sports and encourage children play. We need to incentivize school-level sporting achievements in a big way.
Creating competitive opportunities at grass root level in junior sports is vital. Corporate can play their part by funding sports in schools from their CSR or marketing budget. Decision-makers across sector need to appreciate that promoting sports among children has inarguably the highest per rupee return on investment (RoI) in terms of preventive healthcare, personality development, community building and youth engagement.
Please mention awards and Achievement the state received from various organizations during your period?
The biggest award perhaps was the credibility we enjoyed. Most of the people and agencies that mattered -people, media, peer governments, industry - believed in Haryana government's sincerity in promoting sports. They trusted that we had plans that worked on the ground, whether it was attracting children to playgrounds, encouraging weaker section and disabled to pursue a career in sports or motivating our champion players to be their best.
Formally, Government of India projected SPAT as flagship sports promotion program at CABOS (Commonwealth Advisory Board on Sports) Summit in New Delhi in 2011. The same year, the industrial body FICCI gave us "Sports State of the Year" Award. All major dailies paid glowing editorial tributes equating the success of our sports promotion model to development model of Gujrat and Bihar. Innowin, an innovation-documenting magazine, featured SPAT as "an innovation that can change India".
It was a moving example of what can be achieved if forces join hands. Individually, it affirmed my belief in people. They are intelligent and they have an eye for something fundamentally helpful. Besides, they are generous - if you mean well, they go overboard to say that they liked it.
You had tried hard for enactment of Right of Play Act in Haryana. Are you still on it?
Very much. To me, Right to Play is access to optimum recreational physical activity as a matter of right. We need to throw open existing sporting facilities in the country to the interested people as a matter of right. Schools should be made to meet their licensing requirement in regard to sports.
He is also best-selling author of "Say Yes to Sports", a book that he describes as a decode of business ecosystem for anyone keen on delivering innovation in India. Dr Shashi Tharoor, the eminent scholar and former Union Human Resource Development Minister, has hailed the effort as "a remarkable book" that can "spark a revolution in school sports across the country".
In a candid interview with Vijay C Roy, spoke his mind on role of sports in India's development. Excerpts:
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How has been the state of affairs in Haryana, before you took as Sport Director?
The state has traditionally been good in sports. In countryside, jobs in Armed, Paramilitary & Police Forces may be the initial reason for youth taking to sports. But as things progressed, competitive spirit seems to have taken over. In a nutshell, it was like people had reasons to play, government was favorably inclined as sports associations and political formation overlapped and sports department had the necessary structural strength to play its role in turnaround waiting to happen.
Kindly brief us the program initiated by you? How it helped the Children of the state?
The desire to reciprocate to the government's trust in me motivated me to try hard. Government wanted children to take to sports, disabled and people from weaker section to feel encouraged to play and career sportspersons to excel. A sports scholarship program SPAT (Sports & Physical Aptitude Test), putting premium on basic physical abilities like running, jumping, throwing and stretching, attracted millions to ground in a sustainable, structured manner and went on to become iconic.
We successfully encouraged and enabled more from underprivileged section of society to pursue a career in competitive sports with FAIRPLAY (Funding Athleticism in Reserved category) scholarship program. We gave paralympic athletes complete parity with general athletes in terms of opportunities and incentives.
For career sportspersons, we simply made their achievement worth their toil with a decisive, class-breaking incentive architecture - civic reception, humongous cash award and officer-rank jobs in the government. We complemented our efforts aimed at making sports attractive and aspirational with more competitive opportunities and better sports infrastructure at grass root level.
How SPAT helped in reaching out to kids studying in remotest corner?
SPAT's simplicity is perhaps its biggest strength. It gave kids an opportunity to stand out if they could just run faster, jump higher, throw farther and stretch further. It required no pre-training as just anybody could do it and involved no red-tape as scholarships reached qualifiers account directly.
SPAT managed to attract the usually sports-averse middle and higher middle class as it was a scholarship program. It enjoyed high popular credibility as it had a transparent procedure - it was multistage, held out in the open before thousands of anxious parents and teachers and was almost temper-proof.
Can you please let us know your achievements as Sport Director during the period? Do the programme initiated by you has helped Haryana sportperson to make their mark at National or International level?
It is tempting to personalize achievements but any success has foundation in conducive work conditions and significant others believing in you. As a government, we did remarkably well in branding ourselves as a credible change agent. We had hit upon PIE (Participation, Inclusion & Excellence) model of sports promotion and it was working.
With our performance-linked Employment Guarantee & Assured Cash Prize Scheme, we have successfully addressed those worries. Now a player know what exactly he needs to is to just go out and beat the guy standing opposite to him in the game in his chosen game. A medal in Olympics assures the winner of a rousing civic reception, crores of rupees as cash award and a Class I officer job in the government.
Medal winners in Asian and Commonwealth Game similarly stand to get feted along with Class II & III jobs in the government and cash award good enough to get them a class lift. No surprise, Haryana's share in national contingent for Olympic, Asian & Commonwealth Games has shot up, number of state's players actually winning medals in such events has increased.
Our imaginative incentive architecture has enthused people of age groups - from children to champion athletes masters - to take to competitive sports and make a serious bid to actually win.
What are the things to be done in Haryana to promote sports further?
We have all the right ideas. These have been found working, too. Having a good team in place, keeping them well-funded and holding them accountable is absolutely critical. Government will do well by saying schools to educate parents about the need of sports and encourage children play. We need to incentivize school-level sporting achievements in a big way.
Creating competitive opportunities at grass root level in junior sports is vital. Corporate can play their part by funding sports in schools from their CSR or marketing budget. Decision-makers across sector need to appreciate that promoting sports among children has inarguably the highest per rupee return on investment (RoI) in terms of preventive healthcare, personality development, community building and youth engagement.
Please mention awards and Achievement the state received from various organizations during your period?
The biggest award perhaps was the credibility we enjoyed. Most of the people and agencies that mattered -people, media, peer governments, industry - believed in Haryana government's sincerity in promoting sports. They trusted that we had plans that worked on the ground, whether it was attracting children to playgrounds, encouraging weaker section and disabled to pursue a career in sports or motivating our champion players to be their best.
Formally, Government of India projected SPAT as flagship sports promotion program at CABOS (Commonwealth Advisory Board on Sports) Summit in New Delhi in 2011. The same year, the industrial body FICCI gave us "Sports State of the Year" Award. All major dailies paid glowing editorial tributes equating the success of our sports promotion model to development model of Gujrat and Bihar. Innowin, an innovation-documenting magazine, featured SPAT as "an innovation that can change India".
It was a moving example of what can be achieved if forces join hands. Individually, it affirmed my belief in people. They are intelligent and they have an eye for something fundamentally helpful. Besides, they are generous - if you mean well, they go overboard to say that they liked it.
You had tried hard for enactment of Right of Play Act in Haryana. Are you still on it?
Very much. To me, Right to Play is access to optimum recreational physical activity as a matter of right. We need to throw open existing sporting facilities in the country to the interested people as a matter of right. Schools should be made to meet their licensing requirement in regard to sports.