News of the exit of 1342 youngsters from the Khelo India Athlete Scheme over the last three years found its way to the newspapers and websites last week. When social media accounts amplified the news, connecting it with doping violations and dropping performance levels below prescribed benchmarks, it seemed as if the talent cupboard was suddenly being emptied.
The number of sportspersons being supported under the Khelo India Athlete Scheme has risen from 2808 on August 21 last to 2904 now. Both numbers are from replies by the Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Mansukh Mandaviya during Question Hour in Parliament. That the talent pool is not shrinking should iron out the creases of worry forming on many foreheads.
In fact, the 2904 Khelo India scholars are the second highest number in a year behind the 3030 sportspersons supported in 2020-21. The year 2025-26 is the second successive year in which the numbers have risen after three successive years in which they came down from 3030 in 2020-21 to 2816 to 2759 to 2752 in 2023-24.
Having thus addressed the alarmists’ concerns, we must turn our attention to something beyond the headlines. For a moment, we must go beyond the numbers and study the implementation of the Scheme through the talent development lens. There must be an honest review of the way talent is identified and nurtured.
The admitted exit of 1342 sportspersons from the Khelo India landscape over the last three years should come with lessons for those managing the Scheme. These athletes cannot be thought of as investments that did not pay off. They must not be reduced to statistics. Instead, with the right approach, they can be guiding lights for the programme in the road ahead.
Ostensibly, a handful of the 1342 sportspersons have been ‘weeded out’ as a consequence of their Anti-Doping Rule Violations. And a substantial number may not have been able to match the standards they set when being identified. Besides, some may have gone out of the list because injury has kept them away from training and competition.
Some may be inclined to believe that the exit of hundreds of athletes each year is an indication of faulty selection. But that may not be true at all since these athlete would have come through the National Junior Championships in their respective disciplines to compete in the Khelo India Youth Games from where they would have been selected for support by the Scheme.
Such induction signals that an athlete is among the best young talent in the country, though there could be some who are outside this system and others who surface as late bloomers in their sporting journey but are deemed to have potential to make India proud with exceptional performances.
Stiff benchmarks for athletes graduating to senior ranks
So the question that springs up next is if the benchmarks are too stiff, especially for athletes who are moving up from junior ranks to competing with seniors.
Take, for example, 2023 Asian U20 Athletics Championships 3000m silver medalist, Bushra Khan. Since moving into the senior ranks, she is competing in the 5000m and 10000m events. Then 20 years old, when the Out of Pocket Allowance stopped, she discovered she had been removed from the Khelo India Scheme on April 30, 2025.
It is easily understandable that any athlete would take some time to get used to the competing with more experienced sportspersons. Would it be fair to expect her to beat the more experienced competitors or to match standards whose existence she may be blissfully unaware of? And now, recovering from injury, she needs such support more than ever.
Sprinter Neole Anna Cornelio suffered a similar fate despite clocking her third best 100m time (12.11 seconds) in March 2025 in her maiden season in the seniors’ ranks. Priya Mohan, a fourth-place finisher in the 2021 World Athletics U20 Championships, was taken off the list even as she was healing from a collapsed lung. These are not isolated cases.
The arrival of a sportsperson as a Khelo India Athlete should be a logical step in the high-performance journey rather than an end in itself. Yet, once roped in to the system, nurturing these athletes becomes the responsibility of the system. Every effort must be made to ensure that they train more efficiently and remain motivated to evolve as competitive athletes.
By all accounts, unless they make it to Target Olympic Podium Scheme or Target Asian Games Group, Khelo India Athletes are left to their own devices. There is very little attempt to have conversations with athletes or their coaches, and many discover after being removed from the support system that they are being assessed on some parameters.
Gap Analysis necessary
A couple of years ago, the then Minister for Youth Affairs and Sports told Rajya Sabha that 750 athletes were training in 74 Khelo India Accredited Academies. The remaining 2000-odd Khelo India Athletes continued training in centres thar were not part of the Khelo India programme and perhaps unable to draw the full scholarship amounts.
In fact, the Minister informed the House that Rs 74.42 crore was settled and advanced to 74 Khelo India Accredited Academies (of the 296) between 2018-19 and 2023-24. As many as 77 did not have a rupee advanced in the six years since inception and 71 other academies also did not have any Khelo India Athlete training with them.
Had all Khelo India Athletes got the Rs 6.28 lakh in support of their training and competition whether or not they were part of accredited Khelo India Academies, the amount spent would have exceeded Rs 150 crore rather than Rs 30.83 crore given as out of pocket allowance to all Khelo. India Athletes.
What is the effort turned in to ensure that the athletes, chosen on the basis of their performances in a Khelo India Youth Games, keep improving their standards? Is there an attempt to help the athlete plan the road ahead? Improvement can happen only with the right training and a Rs 10,000 out of pocket allowance alone does not drive an athlete towards raising the bar.
It does not make much sporting sense for athletes to train outside such academies and not be able to draw the full benefit of the scheme or for academies to be accredited and have no athlete training there. It is such anomalies that can be corrected if a sincere review of the implementation of the Khelo India Scheme were undertaken.
