Sports Ministry hikes by 66% boarding & lodging amount for athletes, team officials on foreign tours

New Delhi: Ahead of the Asian Games in China in September and the Paris Olympics next year, the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) has revised the upper ceiling amount of boarding and lodging for Indian Athletes and team officials by 66%.

This is for the athletes and officials participating only in international competitions, under the Ministry’s Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations (NSFs), the Ministry informed in a release on Friday.

Under the newly-revised norm, athletes and support staff travelling for approved competitions abroad (foreign exposures) will now be entitled to USD 250 per day, which is an increase of 66% from an earlier norm of USD 150 per day.

The revision has been made taking into consideration the requests from NSFs, wherein they have mentioned that rates for boarding & lodging fixed by the Local Organising Committee (LOC) of the competitions are higher than the existing ceiling of USD 150 per day. These norms for boarding & lodging were fixed way back in November 2015 and it has been eight years since the revision of the same had taken place.

With the increase in the ceiling for boarding and lodging, the NSFs will be able to arrange reasonably better accommodations for athletes when competing and representing the country at international competitions.

Further, as per recent trends, the Local Organising Committees (LOC) of international competitions are offering a complete hospitality package to the participating teams rather than merely boarding and lodging as was the case earlier, the release said.

The package includes boarding, lodging, local transportation, and on some occasions entry fees as well. The total cost of the package is much above USD 150 per day per person. These considerations have necessitated review of boarding and lodging norms fixed in 2015.

–IANS