Kathmandu, March 31:

Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) is planning to raise the Sports Development Budget funds for the National Sports Council through the government tax for the overall development of sports in Nepal.

The MoES is working on the National Sports Policy 2006 to guide the Nepali sports to greater heights and acquire two per cent of the government tax for the NSC development budget.

It was stated in the draft of the National Sports Policy 2006, presented by Bodhraj Niraula, joint secretary of MoES, at the National Workshop Seminar for the formation of the National Sports Policy 2006 here on Friday.

The draft, divided into six sections, includes nine objectives — to preserve historic sports; to develop schools as the prime sector for talent hunt; to expand entertainment, adventure and tourism sports for the financial support to the nation; to provide employment opportunities to the players and enlarge the sporting circle for professionalism; to support in nation-building by producing patriotic, competent and disciplined citizens; to make country pride by winning medals in international events; to include players from all the sectors, sections, age, sex, and physically disabled; to involve private sectors into the sports; and develop sports-related associations.

Apart from the fund-raising scheme, the draft also includes other three-point agendas under the resource mobilisation section — to fix the annual budget to the National Sports Council as per its programmes; establish a welfare fund to provide financial helps to the players; and to ask the schools and colleges spend the sports fees in sports activities only.

Assistant minister for Ministry of Education and Sports Bhuvan Pathak, secretary of MoES Ramsarobar Dube, National Sports Council’s member secretary Kishor Bahadur Singh, and vice president of High-level Information Technology Commission and former NSC member secretary Sharad Chandra Shah also expressed their views on the occasion. Representatives from various sports associations and others related to sports attended the one-day seminar.

To establish national-level sports academies to produce competent manpower; to build at least one international-standard stadium in all the five development regions; decentralisation of sports training; to allocate 20 per cent reservations to women in the NSC and all the sports-related committees formed under the NSC; to manage at least one sports teacher by local authorities in all the schools; and to authorise local bodies to develop infrastructure in local level are the other brighter aspects included in the draft.