Sportspersons Term 2 p.c. Quota an Eyewash, Want Separate Recruitments

Hyderabad: Sportspersons and sporting associations, while hailing the government’s initiative to create a ‘Bangaru Telangana’ in sports, said that the current reservations for meritorious sportspersons were inadequate and alleged a lack of recruitments over the past decade.

While there is a two per cent reservation in government recruitments, sportspersons say it is not beneficial as they have to compete with open candidates for jobs.

According to GO 107 dated July 27, 2018, an amendment to clause (d) of the Telangana State and Subordinate Service Rules, 1996, states: “In the case of appointments to the posts to which the principle of reservation of appointments applied, out of fifty, as the case may be, forty-five appointments to be made on the basis of open competition, two appointments shall be reserved for direct recruitment of meritorious sportsmen.”

“In the case of appointments to the posts mentioned in clause (d) of sub-rule (2) of rule 22, the 48th and 98th points turn in each unit of hundred (100) vacancies shall be earmarked to horizontal reservation under Sports Quota in Direct Recruitment. In the event of non-availability of eligible sportsmen, the points reserved for them should be deemed to be allotted to Open Competition in the same recruitment,” it states.

However, sportspersons claim that the GO is eyewash as a horizontal reservation of two per cent in recruitments is not of much benefit. They cited an instance, wherein, as per the horizontal reservation in the recent Group-I notification, there were 503 posts in 18 departments but only one post was allocated for sports quota in panchayat raj & rural development service in multizone-I.

Former international athletes questioned how a sportsperson could compete with aspirants who are academically good and secure a job.

“It is a disadvantage for sportspersons as they have to spend six to eight hours every day to excel in their game. It is only after such hard work that they win medals at various levels. Hence, they will not be able to concentrate on their academics and won’t be able to compete with the regular students. How can officials expect the athletes to take part in the written test and secure a post? Isn’t this an injustice to sportspersons?” said GST & Customs superintendent Vijaya Raghavan, who is also a former sports officer and a former international badminton player.

“The purpose of providing sportspersons with jobs is to take forward the sports. If a person is recruited under the sports quota, they should be able to spend five years of their tenure on the sport. Only then will the purpose be fulfilled,” he said.

“Government officials, who make the sports policy, have to study the recruitment process for sportspersons in various all-India departments, PSUs and to take the views of international athletes on how to develop sports in the state and also how to implement the sports quota policy,” he said.

Former Telangana Olympic Association (TOA) secretary Prof. K. Ranga Rao said, “The two per cent reservation is only for cheating sportspersons. If the government is really concerned about sportspersons, they should recruit sportspersons regularly with a special notification and not in the general category. It is the government’s responsibility to take care of the welfare of sportspersons as they work hard to bring laurels and fame to the state at international and national levels.”

“I urge the government and Sports Authority of Telangana State (SATS) to release a document on the appointments of sportspersons under sports reservation in the past 10 years since the formation of the state,” he said.

TOA secretary K. Jagdishwar Yadav said, “The horizontal reservation of two per cent is not beneficial for sportspersons. There were thousands of posts filled by various notifications in the state but sportspersons haven’t been recruited up to the mark.”

“We (TOA) requested the government and the selection boards not to include sportspersons in the open category to compete for jobs. In that case, we asked the recruitment boards to put a separate qualifying mark so that sportspersons will get benefited. We have proposed to the government regarding the special recruitments for sports but they haven’t responded yet. Such (sports) notifications will be like a ‘battle of equals’ so that there won’t be any hide and seek,” he said.