Nizamabad: Josh in players as sports quota restored

Nizamabad: The government restoring sports quota, which has been stopped for the last two years, has filled the sports persons with encouragement. The government had released GO Ms No 2, implementing sports quota for professional courses starting from 2020-21 academic year, except MBBS and BDS category.

Various Sports Associations representatives, Athletes and their parents have expressed happiness as the government has released guidelines for admission into professional courses in sports quota.

The issue of admission into MBBS under sports quota has become controversial over the last few years. With this, in 2018, some players have approached High Court over allegations of corruption in the admissions of seats. The High Court, dissatisfied with the inclusion of non-priority sports and the admission process, directed the government to abolish the sports quota.

As a result, there have been no admissions in sports quota in the State for the last two years.

The government has issued orders to implement sports quota from this academic year in response to a request made by

athletes, their parents and sports associations.

According to the new GO Ms No 2, the government has decided to continue sports quota with the existing 0.5 % reservation in all professional courses like engineering, agriculture, IIIT, ICET, B Arch, EDCET, PECET, LAWCET, DIETCET, POLYCET, ITI etc by implementing the quota only 31 sports disciplines. At the request of the Karimnagar District Yoga Association, the government included yoga in this quota. Players are assigned their priority numbers from 1 to 188 based on their past five years sports achievement.

School Games Federation (SGF) certificates will be given high priority to attract the students towards sports from school level. Criminal cases will be registered against the players, who submit fake certificates as well as their parents, the representatives of the respective sports associations.

The government will withhold for three years the grants of the respective sports associations, which issue fake certificates. Mohammed Kareem, senior Vice-President of Karimnagar District Olympic Association, said that the government's decision to implement sports quota will benefit hundreds of athletes across the State.

This will give recognition to the hard work of the players over the years and more players will get benefit from a review of the rule that only certificates under 19 can be considered.