Inside India’s ₹36,441 Crore Khelo India Scheme & Sporting Future

Breakdown of the New Khelo India Budget for 2026 to 2031

The primary revamp will come in the athlete development pathway and the support for Khelo India athletes. It will now be expanded across all levels from talent identification at the grassroots level to the elite athletes, aiming for a structured high-performance pipeline.

Grassroots Identification: Khelo India Feeder Schools, KIRTI

Under this revamped scheme, Khelo India Feeder Schools and Khelo India Utkrishta Vidyalayas will be established. Their main purpose would be to integrate sports with mainstream education for identifying young talents early and starting their athlete developmental journey in our ecosystem.

This initiative is further bolstering the Khelo India Rising Talent Identification (KIRTI) initiative, which is already nurturing young sporting talents aged 9 to 18. This has been happening with the usage of AI and advanced technological tools while following standardized assessment protocols.

If you ask, how will these identified talented youngsters get the pathway to move to the national level? Via Khelo India Centres (KICs) at the district level. The expertise of past champions and specialized coaches in every cluster of the country will nurture these talents and upscale the country’s athletic talent at the ground-level.

This entire talent identification via such grassroots initiatives is also in alignment with the National Sports Policy which was introduced last year.

Specialized Training Infrastructure & Facilities

Moving up from the grassroots level development, the new scheme is also going to introduce Khelo India Accredited Academies (KIAAs), which will run via a public-private partnership model. These academies will further penetrate the regional clusters of India in addition to the SAI Training Centres (STCs) spread across the country to nurture talent beyond the grassroots and helping them reach the national stage.

Even the Youth Sports Companies of the Armed Forces are being positioned with the same purpose to groom youngsters via specialized kits, scientific coaching & conditioning along with boarding, lodging, insurance and medical care support.

The overall aim is to facilitate the gaps in a promising athletes’ pathway to the top in India.

National Centres of Excellence (NCOEs) – Performance Hubs

The Sports Authority of India already operates several high-performance centres across the country, known as National Centres of Excellence (NCOEs). The Khelo India Centres of Excellence will also serve a similar purpose with a dedicated focus on the Khelo India pool of athletes which will come through the various aforementioned pathways: KIRTI, Feeder Schools, KICs and Youth Sports Companies, etc.

With India aiming to increase its Olympic medal tally in the coming decade and our aim to host the 2036 Olympics, the role of these NCOEs and KICoEs becomes even more crucial. And on top of this, there will be Olympic Training Centres, which groom the national-level athletes coming through this entire pipeline.

How India’s Athletes Will Progress From Grassroots to Elite Level

All in all, this Olympic-level infrastructure, sports science equipment & support is not only going to create elite international medalists but also create a winning culture that takes India’s youngsters from playground to podium.

For this entire structure of training centres & infrastructure, a total of ₹10,586 crores has been earmarked for the five-year period till 2031.

Emerging Khelo India Athletes (E-KIA) Category

In the Khelo India Athletes category, promising players from across the country have been getting support on the financial, equipment and scientific coaching support for the past few years. This revamped scheme will see the creation of a new Emerging Khelo India Athletes (E-KIA) category.

The whole purpose of this category is increase our athlete talent pool ten-fold and bolster the existing and above-mentioned talent identification system from top to bottom, inculcating a four-tier structure: Foundation, Grassroots, Intermediate, and Elite. Each level will have its training environments and progression ladders, alongside specialized coaches, standardized protocols, and athlete monitoring.

Around ₹2,407 crores has been allocated for this component of the new Khelo India scheme for the next five years.

National Coaching Accreditation Board (NCAB)

To strengthen coaching capacity & match world-class coaching standards, a National Coaching Accreditation Board (NCAB) under SAI will be established. The NCAB will work to enable elite-level coaching for meeting international level performances to engaging the youngsters at the grassroots level in each and every corner of the country.

This will involve multi-tier framework covering all levels alongside standardized coach certifications, quality benchmarks and also form a career progression for coaches via a four-level system:

• Community Coaches

• Developmental Coaches

• Performance Coaches

• Elite/High-Performance Coaches

There will plenty of formal courses and certifications designed on a e-Khel Paathshala digital platform for this progression. This is to ensure a continuous development of coaching staff in the country to serve the large athlete pool.

A total of ₹748 crores have been allocated for this whole formation & execution of the NCAB.

Diversifying Sports Competitions & Leagues

The flagship competitions of Khelo India: Youth Games & University Games will continue to groom Indian athletes for global competitions. Meanwhile, there will be a larger focus on thematic events such as Beach Games, Water Sports Festival, Winter Games and Martial Arts Games to promote the diversity of sports in India’s regional clusters.

There is also a plan to increase sports-specific leagues and competitions across school, university and regional level to increase grassroots participation. And last but not least, this new framework will also include ASMITA Leagues for pushing women’s participation, promoting rural, indigenous and tribal games along with supporting para-athletes.

While there is decent financial support for this spectrum of leagues and competitions under the Khelo India programme, this revamped scheme has allocated ₹2358 crores for the upcoming five years.

The Sports Infrastructure Investment: Mission 2036

This new Khelo India budget aims to maximize India’s medals tally by the 2036 Summer Olympics, which includes three cycles of the Olympic Games, Asian Games along with other international competitions. And for that, there is a big investment in upscaling and building up our sports infrastructure from the grassroots to the elite level.

Around 34 percent of the Khelo India budget has been dedicated under three major infrastructural components and each of them has a specific focus:

• Sports Infrastructure for Medal Strategy – Funding: ₹4866 crores

After doing an analysis of India’s priority sports and gauging medal potential, this budgeted component of the thew revamped scheme will focus on supporting greenfield and brownfield projects, including fields of play, hostels, strength and conditioning facilities, sports science centres, allied support infrastructure, and repair and maintenance of underutilized assets.

• Strengthening Strategic Sports Assets – Funding: ₹4963 crores

Given India’s recent sporting success has come courtesy of the Sports Authority of India’s efforts in high-performance training, talent identification & development efforts of athletes, strengthening the SAI centres further will be a key priority under this component. Modernizing existing HPCs and training environments by plugging the gaps via integrating sports science & technology will help in building on the existing successful aspects of our sports ecosystem.

• State Action Plan for Sports Infrastructure Development – Funding: ₹1965 crores

With every state demanding world-class sports infrastructure, this is a dedicated component under this Khelo India Budget. This aims to bridge any infrastructural gaps at the state, regional & district level by providing a shared funding scheme for the states & Union Territories. The Central Government will contribute around ₹1400 crores to this while the states and UTs bearing a cost of ₹565 crores. However, there are three major categories in which how they will bear the split.

• • General category States – 60:40 [60% Central, 40% State]

  • North-Eastern & Himalayan States – 90:10 [90% Central, 10% State]

  • Union Territories – 100% Central Funding

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) – Khelo India