India began to participate at the Olympics in the year 1900. In the 118 years since, we have managed a meagre 28 medals. Apart from infrastructure, a lack of world class facilities, and poor spending, the main cause for India faring poorly at the Olympics is the lack of sports culture in our country. With a sports literacy of 5.56%, how can India expect to compete with sports literate Nations like the United States and China? Sports illiteracy not only hurts us in the field of sports but also in other areas like education and health. As its truly said, “In a healthy body, rests a healthy mind”.  We need to make sports a culture in our country and increased sports literacy is the first step to do it.

We truly believe that seeing is believing, and we hope this novel step that we are taking today will spread to other areas of our great nation and this model will be looked upon and adopted by other premier institutions in the country.

Village Identified

Bahadurpur Village-Khedi Viran (Muzaffarnagar)

The population of Bahadurpur according to Census 2011, stood at 9165 (Males: 4929, Females: 4236).

What is the definition of a Model Sports Village?

  1. Sports and sportspersons are viewed with positivity
  2. People understand the values of sports and the impact that sports can have for the betterment of their lives
  3. Parents start inculcating the knowledge of sports in their children from a very young age just like they focus on alphabets and numerals
  4. Every child/person is associated with at least one sport
  5. Sports for girls
  6. People participate in sports for fun and entertainment
  7. Everyone plays
  8. Sports Hour and Sports Censor
  9. Sports for cordial inter and intra-village relations
  10. Drinking water facilities
  11. Proper delivery of education
  12. Proper sanitation facilities
  13. Environment

The Model Sports Village concept is multi-faceted. Our education system so far has focused more on mental development than on personality and physical development. This, we believe, is unsatisfactory. A Model Sports Village will have basic sports facilities with a focus on athletics and a few Olympic-related sports. It will also focus on the development of schools and will help in providing proper teaching facilities. Just like education without sports is incomplete, sports without education will remain imperfect.

What is the idea behind adopting a village? We think of developing schools, providing water, building infrastructure and then the work is done. Adoption should not mean merely materialistic development. We should think not only in terms of good infrastructure but also in terms of good human resources. What is the point of adopting a village if the people remain ill-equipped to utilize the resources? Every person in an adopted village should also be given the chance to utilize the material resources in the best possible way. And what better tool can be there than sports for providing this chance?

We will also work to achieve some of the tenets of UNDP’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Through the concept of model sports village, we hope to achieve the following SDGs:

  1. Goal 2– End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition.
  2. Goal 3 – Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages
    1. Target 3.4– Promotion of mental health and well-being
    2. Target 3.5– Strengthen the prevention and treatment of substance abuse, including narcotic drug abuse and harmful use of alcohol
    3. Target 3.9- Efforts to check water and soil pollution and contamination
  3. Goal 4 – Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all
    1. Target 4.7– Promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence
  4. Goal 5 – Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls
    1. Target 5.5- Ensure full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels.


  1. Goal 6 – Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all
  2. Goal 10 – Reduce inequality within and among groups (The point of focus on Athletics).
    1. Target 10.2- Empower and promote the social and political inclusion of all irrespective of age, sex, disability, race etc
  3. Goal 11 – Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable
    1. Target 11.7- Universal access to safe and inclusive green and public spaces particularly for women and children
  4. Goal 16 – Promote peaceful and inclusive societies

Project Coordinator
Dr. Kanishka Pandey
Head- Sports Research Centre

Model Sports Village ultima modifica: 2020-12-18T15:43:03+05:30 da imtadmin