India’s Highest Ever Sports Budget In Financial Year 2025-2026: ₹3,794.30 Crore

Published On: February 20, 2023

Sports have become an integral part of our society, both in terms of encouraging a healthy lifestyle and contributing to the economy. The sports industry is a significant contributor to the global economy, and governments throughout the world have increased their spending on sports development and marketing.

In India, the government has increased its sports budget, with an emphasis on constructing world-class facilities to assist athletes and promote the country’s sports culture. In this blog, we will look at India’s sports budget and the government’s efforts to promote sports across the country.

Sports Budget 2025

The Khelo India Initiative of Indian govt. received a significant boost in the union budget with an allocation of 1000 crore for 2025 -2026. Overall , the ministry of Youth & Sports saw its budget rise to 3,794.30 crore.

The Indian government has proposed a sports budget of ₹3,794.30 crore to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. This is an increase of 10.23 % over the previous fiscal year’s budget of Rs. 3,442.32 crore.

This year, the funds allocated to the National Sports Federations (NSFs) have gone up.

The previous year’s allocations were ₹340 crore, and that has been increased to ₹400 crore. The funds for the Sports Authority of India (SAI) have been increased to ₹830 crore from the previous year’s revised grant of ₹815 crore. Apart from appointing coaches, SAI will use the budget to manage several national teams, national camps, and provide the best infrastructure and facilities to athletes.

Khelo India will receive ₹1,000 crore, a notable increase from the previous ₹800 crore. With its many programs, such as the Khelo India Youth Games and the Khelo India University Games, Khelo India has evolved into a platform for identifying and nurturing young talent.

Since its inception in 2018, the funding for Khelo India has been increasing. The National Sports University has been allocated 63.72 crore. This is a decrease from the previous year’s allotment. The National Centre of Sports Science and Research was another prominent organisation that received funding in this budget. They were allotted 10 crore to construct sports science and research centers.

The money set aside for athlete incentives has decreased to ₹37 crore, down from the previous ₹42.65 crore.

The National Anti-Doping Agency has been allocated 24.30 crore after a National Anti-Doping Bill was passed in 2022 to create a statutory body for regulating anti-doping activities, and the National Dope Testing Laboratory has been allocated 23 crore.

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This was the sports budget of the fiscal year 2023–24 in a nutshell.