Cricket is a career option now: Kapil Dev

Kapil Dev, speaking at the seventh Global Sports Summit organised by Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) in Delhi on Monday (February 22), has said that the popularity of cricket and the amount of money involved now has made cricket a career option for youngsters in the country.

“Now a cricketer can earn Rs. 10 crore for playing 40 days only (in the IPL). It is just fantastic. Cricket is a career option now,” he said. “Times have changed and the thought process has changed. Now parents say to their children if you do not want to study you can at least play cricket and become a Sachin Tendulkar or a Rahul Dravid.

“The corporate has done their part by way of sponsorship and media have done their part by making sports, especially cricket, big. I think the government will have to do its part by giving sports infrastructure if India wants to produce champions.”

The former India captain urged the government to provide the infrastructure needed to help the youngsters. “The government will have to provide the sports infrastructure,” he said. “Reduce the tax on sports goods and equipments. I heard that shooters have issues on importing their equipment and ammunition.

“The government will have to make it easy to bring in sports goods and equipments by reducing taxes on these. Schools are the places from where talent will come and if there are not enough play fields, how will the country produce world champions. 40 per cent of the premises of all schools should be play fields.”

Rajiv Yadav, the Sports Secretary, lamented the lack of funds given by the government. “The budget allocation for 2015-16 is just Rs. 835 crore, whereas it should be at the range of Rs. 6000 crore,” he pointed out. “With limited sports budget we cannot give the entire infrastructure and we need a bit of help from the corporate sector.

“We had a meeting with Finance Ministry a few days back and the government has accepted that sports infrastructure building (by the corporate sector) will get concessional finance and this is a good news for the corporates.”