Maken reinforces his stance to bring cricket body under RTI purview

New Delhi, Nov 10 (ANI): Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Thursday reiterated his stance of bringing the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and other sports federations under the purview of Right to Information Act.

Addressing mediapersons on the sidelines of a sportsmen orientation programme here, Maken pointed out the importance of bringing in the National Sports Development Bill in order to prevent money laundering in sports.

"All the complaints launched against IPL (Indian Premier League) and other such leagues, are being investigated by Enforcement Directorate; and another finance committee, which is chaired by Yashwant Sinha, has presented an adverse report on the IPL issue. Therefore, in order to avoid such happenings in the future, we want that all the works of cricket and other federations should be brought under the purview of the Right to Information act," Maken said.

Earlier last month, Maken had presented a revised draft of National Sports Development Bill, which will help to promote more transparency.

However, the BCCI had rejected the Bill saying certain clauses are meant to curb autonomy.

Maken said the revised version the bill includes bringing the federations and other such bodies under the ambit of RTI Act .

"As far as the basic tenets of this bill are concerned, we are going to go ahead with the RTI clause, the age and tenure norms, players' participation in the executive body, at least 25 percent of the players should be there in the executive body," he said.

"This is something, which we have decided; these are the basic tenets. Beside these, sexual harassment cases have to be dealt with severely; it is also a part of this Bill (National Sports Development Bill) Age fraud detection is also a part this bill. So, all such unethical practices including doping are part of this Bill," he added.

Maken also asserted that the government does not want to curb the autonomy of sports federations with the proposed bill, and they would not be pressurized to include lawmakers in their management.

The Sports Bill seeks to limit the tenure of all sports administrators and bring the federations under the scope of RTI Act that enables a citizen to ascertain and monitor almost all projects, programmes and institutions.

The Bill aims to reserve at least 25 percent posts for former players in respective federations and not non-players who manage to sneak in, wielding money power. (ANI)

null