New Delhi: Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday asserted that India will be among the world's top-five sporting nations by 2047, revealing that the roadmap to achieve this was worked out amid the upheaval caused by COVID-19 three years ago. Mandaviya said sports is a focus area in the government's ambitious plan to turn India into a superpower by 2047.
"When the country was under COVID-19 lockdown, the government was brainstorming for 2047, making a roadmap for 2047. One of the components of that roadmap is sports," Mandaviya said during a panel discussion on India's preparations for Paris Olympics.
The discussion was organised by the Delhi Sports Journalists Association in collaboration with the Sports Authority of India.
"Our government has set a target that in 2047, when we are a developed country, we also need to be among the top five in sports. If we don't have a pathway, we will not know whether we can achieve the target or not. During the COVID crisis, I have been witness to all that planning," he asserted.
Mandaviya was the union health minister during the pandemic and was widely praised for overseeing the roll-out of the vaccines to battle the virus in early 2021. The minister said with the kind of diversity India has, it has huge potential to be a superpower in sports.
"This is such a diverse country where we have a lot of potential. We have been blessed with a lot of potential. There is unlimited talent, the only thing is giving opportunity to them," he concluded.
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