After the series of doping scandals that rocked Indian sports over the past few months, one expected the authorities to be serious about fighting the menace. Replying to a question in the Lok Sabha on the issue today, Sports Minister Vikram Verma said 79 sportspersons, including Olympics medal prospects, had tested positive so far this year and that the government was making “serious efforts” to keep away sportspersons from use of any kind of prohibited drugs.The minister’s reply didn’t tell the full story. Since the news broke last December that 23 sportspersons had tested positive at the National Games in Hyderabad, the ministry, and the Sports Authority of India it controls, has done little to fight the menace.Consider the following:• Till date, India has not been able to get international recognition for SAI’s dope-testing laboratory. When the doping scandal surfaced, Verma promised to get international recognition and even set a deadline of June 30 for the lab to get ISO 17025 certification. When that deadline expired, the sports ministry set a new deadline: July 30.• The alternative proposal has also apparently been shelved. Pharma major SRL Ranbaxy had offered to test dope samples. No response from the sports ministry• Neither the ministry nor SAI has any fund earmarked for anti-doping activities — despite the fact that it has a huge medical staff at NIS centres across the country.• Verma’s figures exclude athletes caught in random testing at camps, which is accepted as an effective measure against doping in most major sporting countries. • Manmohan Singh, head of the IOA’s Anti-Doping Commission which is responsible for carrying out random testing, says the number of such tests in India are totally insufficient to eradicate doping. ‘‘We are currently testing only 10-15 per cent of the athletes at the national camp, whereas we should be testing at least around 40 per cent of them to make any serious impact.’’• SAI’s proactive steps to spread awareness about doping are limited to a few booklets — distributed among athletes — and a website. There’s hardly any spending on interaction programme/mass media. • Any serious fight against doping should include an autonomous body to handle testing and punishment. Under the system followed in Indian sports, the results of those testing positve in random testing aren’t reported to the Anti-Doping Commission.
