India's sports policy is defective, former Indian hockey captain Pargat Singh said on Wednesday and urged New Delhi to emulate China.
The Indian policy was not realistic at the ground level and players and athletes should come from the school level, said Pargat Singh, a Congress MLA in Punjab.
Pargat Singh, a Padma Shri and Arjuna Award winner, told the media that India should follow China's policy on promoting sports.
In China, 10-15 per cent of its budget was spent on three-tier sports promotion where nine lakh children aged between three and 13 years were selected for sports.
Of this, 90,000 were taken to the specialist level and from these 9,000 were picked for super specialist sports, he said.
In contrast, only .07 per cent of the budget was allocated in India on sports and even this was spent in an absurd manner, he said.
Recalling Indian hockey's glory days, Pargat Singh said: "Unfortunately commercial input in sports has maligned the basic core of sports."