Bharat chauhan New Delhi; State Rifle Association (DSRA) in its annual general meeting held in delhi discussed voluntary adoption of the National Code Against Age Fraud in Sports (NCAAFS), as advised by the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Government of India.
Famous shooter and DSRA Chairman Padmashree Jaspal Rana said ”we want to stop age fraud in shooting sport as it is unfair when an over aged player competes in a lower aged sports category by using wrong age proofs. We are desirous of implementing the same in Delhi as Delhi State Rifle Association is concerned with preserving the core values of honesty, fair play & team spirit in shooting sports. I request all the national and state level sports federations to come forward to stop the age fraud”.
DSRA Hony. Secretary Rajiv Sharma says, “We accept the rationale that shooters who indulge in age fraud in sports by competing with their juniors and not in their own age group, put genuine shooters at a disadvantageous position. We would therefore contact the accredited medical centers from where the prescribed medical tests can be conducted and also if there is any special concessional rates for getting these tests done in tie up with SAI / Govt of India. We also proposed to raise this point of adoption and implementation of Age Fraud Policy by National Rifle Association of India, and the NRAI has accepted the proposal of DSRA.”
NRAI President Raninder Singh tweeted in support of DSRA’s initiative ”With you & all other state federations of the NRAI like your unit. The Governing Body of the NRAI in its last meeting held on the 10th has approved and adopted the same measures and rules to fight the scourge of age fraud in Olympic shooting as a sport.”
DSRA Joint Secretary Farid Ali said ”We have prepared a policy for the prevention of Age fraud according to NCAAFS. The action proposed is to have medical test for age verification of junior and younger shooters initially at the time of membership and also once before any junior shooter represents Delhi. If a shooter is found over aged from the age category, he or she may be suspended till readjustment into the genuine age group. The sooner we are going to implement it in Delhi, hopefully soon all the sports federations of the country will adopt it.
DSRA governing body member and senior lawyer Gaurav Sarin (who proposed the implementation of NCAAFS) says ”we all had agreed to accept the policy; the manner of acceptance needed to be worked out. The empaneled hospitals and rates are with the SAI to be contacted for the medical tests. We await confirmation from the NRAI that they will agree to reissue shooter identification card when we seek to readjust a shooter into his/her genuine age group. We will circulate the Age Fraud circular on our social media to spread awareness about the implementation of National Code Against Age Fraud in Sports.”
Last month BCCI also announced that a cricketer guilty of age fraud will be barred from all its recognized tournaments for two years. “The BCCI has a zero-tolerance policy for age fraud in sport and has taken strict action against cricketers found guilty of manipulating their date of birth certificates while registering for BCCI tournaments,” said the BCCI in a statement. “As conveyed to state associations at the start of the season, BCCI wishes to reiterate that from the 2018-19 season, any cricketer who is found guilty of tampering his/her date of birth will be disqualified and barred from participating in any BCCI tournament for a period of 2 years i.e. 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons,” it added.
Sports Authority of India has also adopted the guidelines of NCAAFS for Khelo India selections, to stop the age fraud in sports.
