Guwahati, Nov 19: The Centre has called for a “One Sport, One State” approach in the Northeast with each participating State selecting a core discipline for comprehensive, end-to-end development.
Chairing a High-Level Task Force (HLTF) meeting on sports in New Delhi, Union Minister for Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), Jyotiraditya M. Scindia Minister urged the participating States to prepare focused micro-proposals aligned with their chosen disciplines—Mizoram (Football), Manipur (Boxing & Weightlifting), Tripura (Judo), Meghalaya (Archery), Nagaland (Archery & Taekwondo), and Sikkim (Taekwondo).
He underscored that these proposals must be developed jointly by State Sports Ministers and Secretaries, working closely with MoS Sports, Smt. Raksha Khadse and SAI DG to ensure alignment, ownership and sustainability.
The meeting of HLTF on Sports, chaired by the Governor of Manipur, Ajay Kumar Bhalla, saw participation from Union Minister of State for Sports & Youth Affairs, Raksha Khadse; Sports Minister of Mizoram, Lalnghinglova Hmar; and Sports Minister of Meghalaya, Shakliar Warjri, Secretary, Ministry of DoNER and senior officials from the Government of Assam and the Sports Authority of India (SAI).
Minister Scindia emphasised that the roadmap must leverage the region’s natural strengths by identifying cross-State commonalities such as Football, Weightlifting, Judo, Archery, and Taekwondo, and developing sport-specific strategies with clear ministerial accountability.
The Minister highlighted that the proposal must adopt a “60–40 model” with 60% focus on human resource development, world-class coaching, talent scouting and technology-enabled training, and only 40% on physical infrastructure, noting that while infrastructure exists across the country, true sporting excellence requires advanced coaching ecosystems, athlete-centric methodologies and the integration of cutting-edge technology.
“While facilities exist across the country, the real priority is high-quality coaching and effective human intervention. This is essential because even as infrastructure expands, athletes often do not receive the advanced, standards-driven training they need to excel. The Ministry for Development of the North Eastern Region would be happy to provide its full support in advancing this vision.”
The Minister also called for each state to prepare a comprehensive sports calendar built bottom-up from pre-school, school and university levels to block-level tournaments supplemented by inter-state exposure, competitions and exchange programmes. He urged the adoption of a whole-of-government and whole-of-country approach to nurture the disciplines identified by the Northeast states, with the vision that at least one sport from the region should emerge as a national case study in the coming years.
Scindia added that the strategy must balance a macro view of the eight North Eastern states with a micro, deep-dive approach into one selected discipline per State to drive excellence from the grassroots to the elite level.
Also Read: Manipur on edge: Bandh, boycott calls deepen rift ahead of Sangai Festival
Also Watch
Find latest news from every corner of Northeast India at hubnetwork.in, your online source for breaking news, video coverage.
Also, Follow us on-
Twitter-twitter.com/nemediahub
Youtube channel- www.youtube.com/@NortheastMediaHub2020
Instagram- www.instagram.com/ne_media_hub
Download our app from playstore – Northeast Media Hub
