No longer a sport, yoga may not find a place in gradation policy

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 21

Despite last year’s announcement to include yoga under the sports gradation policy, no decision has been taken so far on the issue. Notably, the Joint Director Sports is also the acting principal of the Government College for Yoga, Sector 23.

In 2016, after the initiatives of the then UT Administrator Kaptan Singh Solanki, the previous District Sports Officer, who retired recently, had confirmed that the process to include yoga under the gradation policy was started. 

He confirmed that a coach would also be hired, once the event got included under the policy. But after a year, no development has been made. Asking for anonymity, a senior coach of the department said, “It’s not easy to add a discipline under the sports gradation policy, especially, which is not a sport in terms of competitions. There is no competition in schools and yoga championships are only organised at the college level. If it gets included in the sports gradation policy, schools have to make sure of participation and more manpower will be needed to organise inter-school, sate-level championships. Also, unlike other sports, yoga championships are not organised on the national level. So, it’s a bit difficult to add yoga in this policy.”

As per the set rules, Olympic sports (affiliated to the Indian Olympic Association) should be included under the policy. But a sport like cricket has been included on the basis of mass participation.

In December 2016, the Indian sports ministry confirmed that 'Yoga can't be termed as a sport.'

Interestingly, this year, the Sports Department celebrated yoga day at all the major coaching centres. Last year, the department was not included as a ‘helping unit’ to organise yoga events in the city. The last additions to the sports policy were kho-kho, kabaddi and roller skating in 2015-16. The announcement to add these games in the policy list was made in 2013 but  added last year .