Central board students out of CET sports quota

BENGALURU: Sports is no great leveller in medical and engineering college admissions. CET norms back homegrown talent which stands by Karnataka at the expense of those who excel for central education boards such as ICSE and CBSE.
Of the 709 candidates who applied for seats under the sports quota, 348 were rejected for various reasons. Of the lot, 139 returned disappointed only because they chose to represent the central boards at the national level.
Though this condition is applied only in competitions organized by the School Games Federation of India, the number of central board students who will now have to rely on their academic performance for seats in professional courses, highlights the imbalance.
Contrast this with a few of those who have met the eligibility norms: 21 come from tug-of-war, 10 from atya patya, eight from tennis-ball cricket and seven each from tennikoit and jump rope.
Only because their national federations are approved by the Union sports ministry, a criterion that the department of youth empowerment and sports depends on to determine which sport is officially recognized and which is not. DYES, which scrutinized the documents before preparing the shortlists, said the basic criterion was to reward athletes who represented the state.
“There is no blanket ban on central board students. International and national performances by these athletes, if the competitions are held by recognized sports federations, have not been ignored. We tend to differentiate only in SGFI events because these athletes choose to participate for their boards and not the state. At times, they end up competing against Karnataka,” a top source told TOI.
Recognized by the Union sports ministry, SGFI, an umbrella organization that promotes grassroots sports, has 40 affiliated units.