The most lucrative driver of Indian sports Air India has virtually run out of steam to keep itself floating. Sports become the first casualty in curtailment of expenditure in a bleeding public sector enterprise. Railways keeping with the tradition is keeping sports in the country on track. But it is the petroleum sector that is providing the much-needed fuel to address the financial security concerns of India sportsmen.
The passion and commitment to drive sports is not just confined to the petroleum sector, Coal India has emerged as another public sector enterprise to energise the Indian sports.
The testimony to the Petroleum Sector contribution to Indian sports is that over 30% of the Indian medals at the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta and Palembang are won by the athletes employed with the Petroleum sector companies. The Indian contingent had 38 members who are currently employed with the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).
ONGC has over 175 athletes on its active rolls, while over 150 get sponsorships from the PSU that has over 90 active international players on its rolls.
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ONGC, that has backed icons like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Ashish Nehra, Virat Kohli with employment in their formative years, has a formulated policy for sports. “ONGC Group of Companies, as a committed Corporate entity shall promote culture for Sports and Healthcare within and outside the organization for the development of Human Capital. It will also strive to bring about excellence by tapping latent talent and promote the games in which country has the potential for success and competitive advantage,” reads the Corporate Statement of the company, which has the Human Resource Department Head as the ex-officio chairman of the ONGC Sports Committee.
Young Athletics sensation Hima Das, Jakarta Asian Games silver medallist and world junior champion, had joined ONGC in April this year on a scholarship.
Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), another public and petroleum sector, Maharatna company has also been the leading employment provider to the sportspersons. Indian Oil earlier this year had identified volleyball, basketball, shooting, archery, wrestling, kabaddi and boxing as ‘thrust games’ to promote. The company has provided employment and scholarship support to the sports stars like CWG games sensations pedlar Manika Batra, Achanta Sharath Kamal, shuttlers Kidambi Srikanth and N Sikki Reddy, their guru Pulella Gopichand is an IOC veteran, and a host of cricketers, shooters and hockey players. The list includes shooter Hina Sidhu and veteran shuttler Ashwini Ponappa among other stars.
After Indian Railways and the Services, Petroleum sector is the only major government or public sector employer to have a sports promotion autonomous unit – Petroleum Sports Promotion Board.
The Board was formed in 1979 with the objective to encourage, develop, control, supervise, regulate, coordinate and organize various sports and games for the petroleum sector. The board has Balmer Lawrie & Co. Ltd., Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, Chennai Petroleum Corporation Limited, Engineers India Limited, GAIL (India) Limited, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited, Indian Oil Corporation Limited, Mangalore Refinery Petrochemicals Limited, Numaligarh Refinery Limited, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited, Oil India Limited and the Petronet LNG Limited as its affiliated member PSUs.
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