Why sports need to be a national priority sector

The Executive Board of Commonwealth Sport has recommended Ahmedabad, India, to be the host city for the Commonwealth Games in 2030, which also happens to be the centenary games. While the final decision will be announced this month, the indicators for sports to become a key national priority sector for India are already in place.

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Hosting a multi-nation, multi-sport event brings with it not only a focus on high-performance sport and infrastructure development, but also a societal shift in using legacy planning towards inculcating sport in the population over the long term.

A healthy, skilled, resilient and confident population is the engine of any advanced economy. Sport delivers on each of these outcomes simultaneously. It improves health indicators, drives employment and entrepreneurship, fosters social cohesion, and inspires excellence.

Until recently, sport in India had not been treated as a national priority sector. That is changing rapidly now. With high performance and hosting international events remaining a focus area, there are also several additional aspects to sport being a major contributor to the economy and to society.

With over 65% of India’s population under the age of 35, sport can become a vehicle for skilling, employment, and health security. Our challenge is to move beyond episodic excellence and make sport integral to how we live, learn, work, and grow. This requires a structural shift in how we frame sport; not as a discretionary expenditure, but as a transformative investment.

The recently approved National Sports Policy 2025 (NSP 2025) offers a timely and comprehensive roadmap. It marks a break from earlier policies that focused narrowly on medals and elite talent. Instead, NSP 2025 is rooted in a whole-of-ecosystem vision, built on five interconnected pillars — excellence, education, mass participation, economic growth, and social development.