Khelo Bharat Niti 2025: Street SMART Sports Governance for Viksit Bharat within the Framework of Needonomics

Prof Madan Mohan Goel, Former Vice-Chancellor of three universities

The  unveiled  ‘Khelo Bharat Niti 2025’ on July 01,2025 marks a transformative step in shaping India’s sports policy landscape, aimed at placing Indian athletes among the top five global sporting nations by 2047. Welcoming this forward-looking initiative,  Needonomics School of Thought (NST) views it not merely as a policy but as a guiding philosophy for national discipline, holistic development, and societal transformation. With a focus on “doing what is needed” instead of chasing wants, Needonomics provides a moral and economic compass to align sports policy with national values and priorities.

Five Pillars and Their NST Interpretation

The five pillars of Khelo Bharat Niti 2025—global excellence, economic development, people’s movement, integration with National Education Policy( NEP) 2020, and nurturing Indian sporting talent—resonate with the tenets of NST. Let us explore each in this light:

1. Excellence on the Global Stage:

The aspiration to be among the world’s top five sporting nations is ambitious yet achievable. NST supports this goal provided that excellence is not driven solely by medals and glamour but by ethics, inclusivity, and discipline. This requires developing world-class coaching ecosystems, especially geared toward the 2036 Olympics, with a robust administrative backbone that is transparent, accountable, and participatory.

2. Sports for Economic Development:

From the NST perspective, sports are not just a leisure activity—they are a productive economic sector. Investments in sports infrastructure, sports tourism, and event management can generate employment, entrepreneurship, and skill development. However, this economic development must be needs-based, equitable, and not skewed by market-driven biases like the over-monetization of select sports (e.g., cricket).

3. Sports as People’s Movement:

Needonomics urges that sports be democratized, involving every citizen—from rural to urban, rich to poor, male to female, and abled to differently-abled. When sports become a mass movement, they naturally foster social unity, national pride, and civic discipline. This people’s movement should also aim at youth empowerment, thereby preventing social evils like drug addiction, which plague our youth today.

4. Integration with NEP 2020:

The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 emphasizes holistic development and multidisciplinary learning. NST welcomes the integration of sports into the education system as essential to body-mind-spirit unity, which is central to both education and Needonomics. However, this integration must go beyond tokenism and ensure timely curriculum revision, infrastructure development, and coach recruitment in educational institutions.

5. Flourishing of Indian Sporting Talent:

For sporting talent to thrive, we must create eco-systems of opportunity, not just for selection and competition, but for sustained training, employment, mental well-being, and post-retirement security. NST encourages policy interventions like employment-linked schemes, insurance coverage, and recognition of sports as a profession with parity to other skilled domains.

Need for Street SMART Sports Governance

NST advocates for Street SMART governance—Simple, Moral, Action-oriented, Responsive, and Transparent. Sports governance in India must move away from bureaucratic lethargy, favoritism, and political interference and adopt this SMART model. Key actions should include:

• Decentralization of sports administration to states and local bodies.
• Merit-based selection of administrators, coaches, and athletes.
• Use of digital platforms for real-time grievance redressal and performance tracking.
• Ensuring gender parity and diversity in all sports-related roles.

The upcoming 2036 Olympics must be a catalyst for reforms, not a cosmetic exercise.

Correcting the Cricket-Centric Imbalance

Even at the risk of being misunderstood by cricket fans, NST raises a valid concern—the economic and cultural dominance of cricket has created stark inequalities across other sports. While cricket has achieved enormous success, it has also monopolized sponsorships, media attention, and government support, often at the cost of underfunded disciplines like athletics, wrestling, archery, hockey, and para-sports.

This imbalance undermines the spirit of sports equity, which is essential for achieving global excellence. NST calls for:

• A cap on disproportionate funding and redistribution of resources across sports.
• Dedicated national sports channels for broadcasting non-cricket events.
• Creation of cross-sport mentorship platforms to share best practices.

Rural Sports and Inclusive Infrastructure

The Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi  deserves commendation for emphasizing rural sports development in Khelo Bharat Niti 2025. NST views this as a need-based correction of historical urban bias. Rural India is rich in raw talent that lacks exposure, facilities, and coaching. NST recommends:

• Launching Gram Khel Kendras (village-level sports centers) with basic infrastructure.
• Mobilizing anganwadi workers and school teachers as grassroots sports facilitators.
• Promoting traditional Indian sports like kabaddi, kho-kho, and mallakhamb.

PPP Model and the Role of Private Sector

NST strongly advocates for Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) in sports development. While the private sector has built excellent infrastructure (especially in schools, universities, and clubs), they often fail to hire full-time coaches, reducing sports to decorative amenities.

To bridge this gap, NST suggests:

• Mandating private institutions to recruit certified coaches as a condition for tax rebates.
• Allowing Sports Authority of India (SAI) to deploy coaches in private institutions through a cost-sharing model.
• Creating a National Sports Coach Bank to match demand and supply efficiently.

Such PPP models not only improve training quality but also generate employment for retired sportspersons.

Employment and Welfare for Sportspersons

To make sports a viable career path, NST stresses the importance of post-playing life security. The government must:

• Institutionalize reservation and lateral entry schemes in defense, railways, banking, and public services for athletes.
• Provide scholarships and pensions to sportspersons based on performance, not just medals.
• Encourage sports startups and entrepreneurship among former athletes.

Conclusion:

India’s journey from playgrounds to podiums must be guided by ethics, equity, and efficiency. Khelo Bharat Niti 2025, when viewed through the lens of Needonomics, offers not only a policy but a paradigm shift—from wants to needs, from glamour to grassroots, and from exclusivity to inclusivity.

It is time for all stakeholders—governments, institutions, civil society, and the private sector—to collaborate with conscience, ensuring that the discipline of sports shapes a disciplined nation. The NST envisions a future where sports become not just a means to win medals but to build moral muscle, social cohesion, and national integrity. Let us play not just to win—but to grow, unite, and serve. That is the Needo-message of Khelo Bharat Niti 2025.