The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS) and the Sports Authority of India (SAI) plan to appoint dedicated IT Consultants within National Sports Federations (NSFs) to enhance governance and operational efficiency through the National Sports Digital Ecosystem (NSDE).
Union Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Mansukh Mandaviya described the initiative as a means to "streamline federation-specific digital systems and enable more effective planning for competitions, national coaching camps, athlete participation, governance processes and real-time coordination as India prepares to build a stronger sporting ecosystem ahead of the 2030 Commonwealth Games and its long-term Olympic ambitions."
In recent years, MYAS and SAI have digitalised key operational platforms such as the Annual Renewal portal, Annual Calendar for Training & Competition (ACTC), Games Management System (GMS), Sports for Women portal, National Sports Repository System (NSRS), and upcoming DigiLocker integrations. These systems have enhanced transparency, accountability, athlete tracking, fund monitoring and governance across the sports sector.
As federations manage multiple digital workflows-covering areas including annual recognition, competition calendar management, athlete and coach mapping, Games nominations, result uploads, financial documents and DigiLocker-linked certifications-the necessity for dedicated digital coordination at federation level has grown.
The NSF IT Consultants will assist federations in onboarding, operationalising and coordinating digital systems under NSDE. Their support will cover ACTC calendar and proposal creation, athlete and official nominations on GMS, annual renewal submissions, tournament result uploads for DigiLocker integration, NSRS profile validation, reporting and record management, as well as digital communications with SAI and MYAS.
This initiative aims to enhance efficiency in competition participation planning and national camp management by ensuring timely, integrated processing of athlete data, schedules, nominations and approvals. It is also expected to reduce coordination gaps, improve data quality, strengthen adherence to timelines and enable federations to focus more effectively on athlete development and sporting achievement.
The NSF IT Consultant framework represents a progression towards an integrated, athlete-focused and federation-supported digital governance model in India.
As India intensifies preparations for the 2030 Commonwealth Games and targets a record medal tally on home soil, bolstering digital governance systems is seen as vital for improving athlete management, competition readiness, performance monitoring and institutional coordination across the sports ecosystem.
Through NSDE, NSRS, federation support systems and NSF IT Consultants, the Government aims to establish a seamless, transparent and technology-driven sports ecosystem aligned with the vision of enhanced transparency fostering a stronger sporting nation and a Viksit Bharat.