Sports Ministry’s special fund is for top athletes, bureaucrats dip into it to upgrade their own sports facilities

The Indian Express investigated five years of official records and data obtained under the RTI Act, and interviewed current and former Government officials, to find that while a chunk of these funds was indeed allotted for sports facilities, a slice of the pie was also channelled into civil services institutions and the Delhi colony for bureaucrats.

Among the well-known sports missions funded by NSDF: the flagship Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) for elite athletes. Among the not-so-well-known beneficiaries: facilities for senior bureaucrats, two RSS-linked institutions in Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh, and even some lesser-known cricket boards in Asia and the Caribbean.

The NSDF fund is governed by a 12-member Council under the Union Sports Minister. But the body that clears grant proposals is a six-member committee of officials under the Sports Ministry — from the same system that benefits from the grants.

Consider this:

Between 2021 and 2025, over Rs 6.2 crore from the NSDF went to the Civil Services Officers’ Institute (CSOI), the Central Civil Services Cultural and Sports Board (CCSCSB) and for the New Moti Bagh Residential Complex from a sanctioned total of over Rs 6.7 crore, Sports Ministry records show.

During the same period, the records show that two RSS-affiliated organisations received approximately Rs 2.66 crore to conduct tournaments and build facilities from a sanctioned amount of Rs 5.07 crore.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI), through the NSDF, also spent approximately Rs 1.08 crore on “procurement of gifting of cricket items” to cricket boards in the Maldives, Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines.

These expenditures are significant because they coincide with a sharp fall in contributions to the fund — from Rs 85.26 crore in 2023-24 to Rs 37.02 crore in 2025-26.

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So much so that a Parliamentary Standing Committee raised the red flag. Calling for “greater regulations of the NSDF”, its report tabled in the Lok Sabha in August 2025 said: “The Committee has been given to understand that in previous years’ grants, these funds have been given to the residential colonies and civil services associations. The Committee recommends that this practice should be avoided.”

Sports money for officers’ colony

Nothing illustrates the diversion more plainly than the swanky facilities in Delhi’s New Moti Bagh.

Records show that around mid-2024, the six-member committee that screens NSDF grant applications received a proposal from the residential colony for some of the country’s most senior bureaucrats — centrally located, tightly guarded and spread over 100 acres.

The request was not the first of its kind. Records show that on July 31, 2019, SAI had already sanctioned Rs 2.8 crore from the Khelo India scheme for the “creation of sports infrastructure at New Moti Bagh Complex, New Delhi”.

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On June 7, 2024, another grant of Rs 2.2 crore — this time from NSDF — was approved for “Residents Welfare Association, Moti Bagh”. The purpose: “For upgradation/ renovation of sports infrastructure at New Moti Bagh Residential Complex, New Delhi”. Of this, Rs 1.1 crore was released in 2024-25 and Rs 88 lakh in 2025-26 — the second instalment arrived when contributions to the NSDF were at their lowest since 2021-22 (see chart).

The sports complex itself can rival any top facility in the country: badminton courts with wooden flooring, a squash cubicle, a temperature-controlled swimming pool with a transparent canopy, a gym, a billiards room and two tennis courts. According to SAI’s project status report, the tennis courts had already been part of the 2019 Khelo India project. Five years later, the same hard courts were upgraded again.

Sudhanshu Pandey, president of the New Moti Bagh Residents’ Welfare Association (RWA) and election commissioner for Union Territories, said he had not read the Parliamentary committee’s report and did not offer any comments on its observations.

He said the RWA appointed NBCC, the agency that developed the colony, to execute the project. “It prepared a DPR (Detailed Project Report), which got approved by SAI, then the Sports Ministry evaluated it and sanctioned the money. The capital expenditure came from there. Where the money comes from, that is for the Government to decide,” Pandey told The Indian Express.

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On access to the complex’s facilities, Pandey said they are available to “residents of the colony, other government officers staying outside and private citizens”. “But we do proper screening, so that the right kind of people only join. We organise a lot of activities. Recently, we organised a sports competition. It was almost spread over a month, in all the sports. We also organised a marathon. So, our focus is basically to promote fitness, to promote sports. So, a lot of children of civil servants use the facilities, and naturally, they get attracted, and some of them also excel,” he said.

Asked about the propriety of drawing from a fund mainly meant for sportspersons, Pandey said, “Residential colonies are also developed by the Government and a part of that overall welfare activity.” He said: “Otherwise, such huge Government colonies would not have been developed like Sarojini Nagar, New Moti Bagh, Netaji Nagar, and so many. And the sports facilities are one of the integral facilities that are required. Sports facility and creating that awareness about the emotional health, mental health, physical health, which essentially saves a lot of health expenditure indirectly also.”

According to the official website of the Sports Ministry, NSDF aims to mobilise “resources from Government as well as non-government organizations and individuals to provide required support for promotion of specific sports disciplines and improving performance of Indian sports in the major international events. Institutions, government and non-government organizations exclusively dealing with promotion of sports and individual sportspersons of outstanding ability will be eligible for getting financial assistance from NSDF for specific projects”.

It states that the fund was established in 1998, under the Charitable Endowments Act 1890. “The NSDF supports sportspersons to excel in the field by providing opportunities to train under coaches of international repute with technical, scientific and psychological support and also in getting exposure to international competitions,” it states.

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“Financial assistance is also provided to specific projects for promotion of sports and games sponsored by reputed Organizations/ Institutes, provided the facilities so created are made available to a sizeable population of the area/ region,” it states, adding that the NSDF office is located in Shastri Bhavan in the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.

The Sports Ministry did not respond to an emailed questionnaire from The Indian Express, seeking its response to the key findings of the investigation. CSOI general manager, Col. Vijay Yadav (retd), declined to comment. CCSCSB did not respond to requests for comment.

Speaking to The Indian Express, a former Sports Ministry official said it was “unethical” to dip into NSDF for projects serving bureaucrats that are not open to the public. On the “gifts” to cricket boards abroad, the official said the purpose was to “promote international cooperation, which is one of the key objectives of the NSDF”. But, he said, “The argument would hold water if the NSDF money was used to promote indigenous sport in other countries. Why the taxpayers’ money is used to support cricket in other countries, when the Government doesn’t even fund cricket in India, remains a question.”

Their clubs and institutes benefitted, too

The diversion was not confined to where bureaucrats live.

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Records for the past five years show that for infrastructure, equipment and sports promotion, the NSDF released a total of Rs 34.18 crore (2021-22), Rs 16.97 crore (2022-23), Rs 73.18 crore (2023-24), Rs 22.29 crore (2024-25) and Rs 27.31 crore (2025-26). Consider where some of it went, according to Sports Ministry records:

On March 10, 2021, the NSDF sanctioned Rs 3.01 crore for “construction/ renovation of the sports facilities at the campus with gym equipment, etc” at CSOI, an exclusive facility for bureaucrats in the heart of the capital. The institute received the first tranche of Rs 1.5 crore in 2021-22 and its second instalment of Rs 1.2 crore in 2024-25.

On December 20, 2021, Rs 1.55 crore was approved for the “construction/ renovation of sports facilities” at the CCSCSB campus, also in Lutyens’ Delhi. The CCSCSB, which functions under the Directorate of Personnel and Training (DoPT), received Rs 77.65 lakh in 2021-22 and a second instalment of the same amount in 2023-24.

Take the case of 2021-22, when total donations to the NSDF stood at Rs 15.13 crore — the lowest in five years. The Government contributed Rs 5 crore, taking the total corpus that year to Rs 20.13 crore. Records show that more than 10 per cent of this amount was used to upgrade facilities for civil servants.

Records show it was not just facilities for bureaucrats:

l In 2024-25, RSS-affiliated Vanvasi Kalyan Parishad at Kotra in Udaipur received Rs 2.41 crore for the construction of a spectator’s gallery with a utility building, resurfacing of an athletic track and a practice football ground. The sanctioned amount, in March 2024, was Rs 4.82 crore. The Parishad runs sports centres, hostels, and health care centres, among other things, for scheduled tribes across Rajasthan.

Similarly, Sangh-linked Vanvasi Kalyan Samiti in Chhattisgarh’s Jashpur, which ‘works towards the upliftment of the tribal communities’, according to its website, received Rs 18.75 lakh to conduct national-level competitions in Raipur. In 2025-26, the same organisation received Rs 6.25 lakh to organise a tournament.

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Ex-Minister’s state got a share

Not all the money went to organisations outside the national sporting ecosystem — even if it covered the then Sports Minister’s home state.

In 2021-22, with Kiren Rijiju as Sports Minister, Rs 5.93 crore was approved on June 4 for “civil work and installation of open-air gym at 26 District HQ” across Arunachal Pradesh — of this, Rs 2.96 crore was released that same year and Rs 2,37 crore in 2023-24. On March 16, 2022, a further Rs 2.25 crore was sanctioned for the “construction of two-court badminton hall at 15 locations” in the state.

In 2022-23, when contributions to the NSDF peaked at Rs 85.26 crore, the Government spent Rs 73.18 crore on infrastructure, equipment and sports promotion.

Nearly half of this went towards constructing hostels at SAI’s Bengaluru centre and Gwalior’s Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education and Sports, and establishing a high-performance centre at SAI, Sonepat. That year, the cricket associations of Jamaica and St Vincent and the Grenadines received “cricket items” worth Rs 46.23 lakh and Rs 8.79 lakh, respectively, as “gifts”.

In 2024-25, the Rohan Bopanna Tennis Development Foundation received Rs 2.7 crore. In 2025-26, the SAI-Gopichand Academy in Hyderabad received Rs 1.38 crore “for training of players and ancillary expenses — recurring cost”.

In this context, the Parliamentary committee’s recommendations were unambiguous: “…these CSR funds should strictly be utilised in development of sports, infrastructure, coach etc”.

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