Railways, Services against proposed demotion

Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) and Services Sports Control Board (SSCB), both nearly 100 years old, moved the Supreme Court questioning the Justice Lodha panel's recommendation to downgrade them from full members in BCCI to associate member status under the one state-one vote criteria.

"Each year, railways recruits more than 600 sportspersons including a sizeable number of women players. With an active sportsperson strength of around 3,000, the contribution of RSPB, a historical institution since 1928, is unparalleled and continues to grow in importance," RSPB's advocate Col R Balasubramanian said on Wednesday (April 6). RSPB is part of the national federations of hockey, football, athletics, wrestling, boxing, gymnastics, volleyball, handball, kho-kho, bridge, judo, aquatics, badminton, powerlifting, billiards, archery, basketball, cricket, weightlifting and shooting among others.

Highlighting its contribution in the field of women's cricket, the RSPB said, "In the recent series played in Australia, 10 out of 11 playing members were from Indian Railways; when the team played in Sri Lanka, eight of the playing 11 were from railways. This itself indicates the stellar contribution of RSPB towards women's cricket in India.

"RSPB is the single most important organization to have contributed for growth of women's cricket in India being the only one to provide employment opportunities to women cricketers in such large numbers, having secured employment to hundreds of women cricketers with current players being in the range of more than 150 players."

Though a full member of BCCI for a long time, RSPB has neither got nor demanded any contribution from the cash-rich board, whose distribution of revenue among members drew flak from the SC on Tuesday. RSPB said relegating it to associate membership would mean taking away the voting right of a very important body. "Voting right ensures that issues and welfare of players from a state or organization can be voiced and given due consideration. Associate membership would extinguish that right and RSPB would have no say in the administration of cricket," it said and feared that this could badly hurt women's cricket.

SSCB, which came into existence in 1919, also said the armed forces - Army , Navy and IAF - have special sports quota in recruitment.