SAI launches project to weed out corruption

New Delhi: The Sports Authority of India (SAI) is working on implementing an ambitious project - e-tender procurement - to clamp down on corruption within the sports body.

In his bid to make SAI more effective in its functioning, the SAI Director General is working on launching the 'e-tender procurement', wherein, whenever the SAI will invite bids for a tender, interested parties will have to file their bid documents through the internet.

"It will be protected by a password and the parties will come to know about their bids whether it was successful or not once the tenders are opened. It will help in minimising corruption and help in the better functioning of the SAI," an official told PTI.

The proposed step has been seen by many as an effort to check rampant malpractices within the organisation.

In another major development, the SAI is all set to put in place a system wherein the daily and travel allowances, alloted to athletes during overseas training and competitions, will be directly credited to their account instead of being routed through concerned federations.

Many athletes had faced this problem in the past wherein the daily allowance alloted during tours did not reach them.

"The money will be remitted directly to the athletes' accounts. Many a times, athletes have faced this problem where they did not get their daily allowance travelling abroad or even if they got it, they were never paid fully," he added.

Athletes are eligible for 25 per cent of the daily allowance with SAI taking care of boarding and lodging for fully-funded tours. The athletes get USD 25 on Europe and America tours where the full DA quota is USD 100 while they are entitled for USD 18.75 when touring other nations where the DA is USD 75.

Meanwhile, the sports body has also introduced bio-metric attendance systems at the SAI headquarters, all of its stadia and its regional centres to keep a check on absenteeism, especially at its smaller centres where the coaches and officials often had been found working outside the campus and availing long leaves.