The Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs & Sports, Shri Sarbananda Sonowal has said that the 55 National Sports Federations (NSFs) have been granted annual recognition by the Govt. for the year 2015 for different sports disciplines.

Normally, elections are held by the NSFs at the intervals prescribed under the bye-laws of the concerned NSFs. In past, a few cases of violations of age and tenure restrictions, irregularities in elections, etc was noticed.

He said, In order to ensure that NSFs function in a democratic manner, Government has prescribed model election guidelines to be followed by the NSFs for their elections which has been made an integral part of the National Sports Development Code of India, 2011 (NSDCI).

NSDCI, inter-alia, contains instructions on democratic and healthy management practices, age and tenure limits of office bearers, holding of elections as per model election guidelines devised by the Government, etc.

In a written reply in the Lok Sabha today the Minister said, from the year 2010, the Government has introduced a system of annual recognition procedure for the NSFs, under which annual recognition is granted to those NSFs which comply with the provisions of NSDCI including holding of elections in time.