The Current Landscape

India has come a long way since it first started participating in the Olympics in 1900. Even with apparent success at the 2020 Summer Olympics, the total medal count of the country is not particularly remarkable. But perhaps more importantly, female athletic representation in sports remains grim. 

There exist certain socio-cultural and systemic barriers to women’s participation in sports in India, which prevents them from fully engaging themselves in it. Common barriers include cultural attitudes that ascribe it as a masculine activity, lack of family support, state funding priorities that favour men’s sports, and as a result, limited access to quality training, equipment, experienced coaches and support staff; the existence of wage gaps; and an urban-centred model of sports development, which leaves out women from remote and rural areas.¹ Other key constraints include gender discrimination in selection and training, body image concerns, and safety concerns during travel and training.²

Additionally, regular and specialised sports training costs money, which women from lower socio-economic backgrounds may be unable to afford. To tackle this multifaceted issue, the Government of India introduced sports scholarships that provide quality coaching free of cost to talented and deserving athletes who might otherwise be denied a fair opportunity to prove their skills and represent the country on the international stage.

The government has rolled out nationwide initiatives since the 1980s to enhance sports participation and talent development. These scholarships are owned and operated by the Sports Authority of India (SAI) under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS).

The budgetary allocations to the Ministry have grown during the decade 2016-2026, albeit inconsistently. While the B.E (Budget Estimate) in FY 2016-2017 was Rs. 1592 crore, it grew to Rs. 4479.88 crore in FY 2026-2027. The spikes in spending, however, have largely been event-driven.³

Budgetary allocations to the SAI tell more or less the same story, with allocations having been increased over the years, while the actual expenditure figures more closely match the R.E (Revised Estimate) figures of each FY, in contrast to the MYAS, for which the actual expenditure has consistently been lower than the R.Es of each year. 

How far the budgeted schemes have benefitted women is a critical question. Gender disaggregated data for a variety of SAI schemes tell a bleak story about gender parity. SAI-specific schemes cover SAI National Centers of Excellence (NCOEs), SAI Training Centers (STCs), Extension Centers of STCs, and the National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC).

For the year 2025–2026, in the 26 NCOEs of the country, the total working strength of athletes was 3,641, out of which 1,705 were girls and 1,936 were boys. There were 69 STCs, with a working strength of 4,556, out of which 1,810 were girls and 2,746 were boys. In the 22 Extension Centres of STCs, the working strength was 224, of which 47 were girls and 177 were boys. Under the NSTC scheme, a total of 64 schools had been adopted, of which 5 were regular schools, 9 were IGMAs, and 50 were Akharas. Among these, regular schools appeared to be non-functioning in 2025–2026, with zero students enrolled under the training programme, while IGMAs had 70 girls and 55 boys enrolled. A total of 142 girls and 735 boys were enrolled in 50 Akharas under the scheme.⁴

It is evident from the male-female participation ratio under the SAI  schemes discussed above that male athletes enjoy a disproportionate benefit from the scholarship programs. This can potentially be linked to under-representation at the Olympic games, which is one of the most prestigious events held in the sporting arena on a global scale. 

A total of 1038 Indian athletes have represented India at the Olympic Games, starting in 1900. However, out of this, consistently, more participants are male than female. Male participants number 1096, while female participants are a mere 294.⁵ Notably, for a country of its size and population, India has been able to bring home only 41 medals at the Olympics as of 2026.

Sports scholarships, as discussed in the beginning of this article, play an important role in helping talented athletes with not enough resources or coaching support to develop and nurture their talents, allowing them to ultimately compete at the international stage in events such as the Olympics, the Commonwealth Games, and the Asian Games.

For instance, the Khelo India scheme provides ₹6.28 lakh per year per athlete, inclusive of a ₹10,000 monthly allowance, to around 1000 athletes selected annually for a funding duration of 8 years, covering training, equipment, diet and education.⁶ The Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS) provides high-quality coaching for elite athletes with medal-winning prospects, with a monthly stipend of upto ₹50,000 per athlete. 

The main objective of these scholarships is to nurture talented athletes to achieve national and international prestige in sports. However, whether these initiatives have been able to meet their targets or not is a question which needs to be approached critically.

Rethinking the Approach

India’s current sport policy falls short of accommodating women in the picture. To be able to see a positive change in terms of gender equality in sports, India has to approach its own policy decisions and priorities critically. This can be examined across a few key areas.

Firstly, the gap between allocations and actual spending of the MYAS shows the inability of monetary investment by the government to translate into actual intended output. This calls for a strict re-evaluation of the funding priorities and patterns of the ministry, while simultaneously assessing the SAI’s outputs for specific schemes to check for gender parity in the beneficiary list. 

The government may not be able to enhance gender parity in sport participation merely by increasing the budgetary allotments made to the ministry. Sometimes, a specifically targeted solution works better than a generic, leap-of-faith decision like this one. For instance, in the U.S, the government introduced and passed the Title IX legislation in 1972,⁷ which opened the door for more equitable female participation in sports. This did not include an increase in budget for sports in general or women’s sports in particular. What it did was legally prohibit any form of discrimination based on sex in the provision of athletic scholarships in federally funded sports programs. 

Secondly, with regard to the NSTC under the SAI-specific schemes, Kushti/wrestling is a sport which has historically been dominated by men.⁸ Therefore, the government’s decision to set up 50 akharas all across the country ends up disproportionately benefitting male athletes, as is clear from the stark gap between the number of male and female athletes enrolled in the akharas. Interestingly, Indigenous Games and Martial arts show more female participation than male, which may potentially indicate a niche area of interest in sport among girls, which can be leveraged by setting up more IGMA-focused schools under the scheme, thereby improving the chances of female participation. Additionally, effort must be taken to make kushti more gender-inclusive, including promoting intergender competition.

Going by the same logic, China had adopted a strategy to shift focus to sports identified as “small, fast, women, water, and agile’’, thereby concentrating on niche sporting areas where it holds a competitive edge, including table tennis (“small”), diving (“agile/water”), and several women’s events in which Chinese female athletes have historically achieved stronger performances than their male counterparts. ⁹

Finally, even with the support of schemes such as the TOPS and Khelo India, India’s female participation rates and success at the Olympics has been dismal. This reflects the inability of sports scholarship programmes in providing adequate and equal opportunities to female athletes and in nurturing their talent for international-level tournaments like the Olympics.

Overall, India’ sports policy is in dire need of a few fundamental changes if it plans on making sports more inclusive and accessible to women. 

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References:

1.  Ashutosh A. Naik and Rohan Bavadekar, “Women in Sports: An Analytical Study of Multi-Dimensional Challenges Faced by Women Athletes in India,” Arthshastra: Indian Journal of Economics and Research 13, no. 4 (October–December 2024): 171–176. 
2.  Amit Singh, “Perception and Participation of Women in Competitive Sports in India,” Idealistic Journal of Advanced Research in Progressive Spectrums (IJARPS) 3, no. 12 (December 2024): 233–242.
3. V. Shrinagesh, “Government Expenditure and Sports Outcomes: An Empirical Evaluation of Public Sports Investment in India,” SSRG International Journal of Economics and Management Studies 12, no. 6 (2025): 47–60, https://doi.org/10.14445/23939125/IJEMS-V12I6P105 
4.  Sports Authority of India, Brief on SAI Sports Promotional Schemes 2025–2026, 2025. Sports Authority of India, Brief on SAI Sports Promotional Schemes 2025–2026, 2025.
5. Olympedia, “India,” accessed May 8, 2026, https://www.olympedia.org/countries/IND 
6. Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports, “Factsheet Details,” Press Information Bureau, Government of India, accessed May 14, 2026, https://www.pib.gov.in/FactsheetDetails.aspx?Id=148571&reg=3&lang=2 
7.  U.S. Department of Education, “Title IX and Sex Discrimination,” accessed May 19, 2026, https://www.ed.gov/laws-and-policy/civil-rights-laws/title-ix-and-sex-discrimination 
8. Joseph Viruthiyel, “Staged Strength: Intergender Kushti in North India as Spectacle and Sociocultural Commentary,” Samyukta: A Journal of Gender and Culture 10, no. 2 (2025), https://doi.org/10.53007/SJGC.2025.V10.I2.277
9. J. Zheng, S. Chen, T.-C. Tan, and P. W. C. Lau, “Sport Policy in China (Mainland),” International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics 10, no. 3 (2018): 469–491, https://doi.org/10.1080/19406940.2017.1413585 
   

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Swathi Krishna is a research intern at the Centre for Public Policy Research, Kochi.

Views expressed by the authors are personal and need not reflect or represent the views of the Centre for Public Policy Research.