Khelo India Youth Games are the annual national level multidisciplinary grassroot games in India held in January or February for two categories, namely under-17 years school students and under-21 college students. Every year best 1,000 kids will be given an annual scholarship of ₹5 lakh (US$6,000) for 8 years to prepare them for the international sporting events.[1]
The Training of Trainers Programme was held in December 2018–January 2019 in the first phase. A total of 160 young athletes were trained in 4 batches of 40 each in the December to January period. It will continue semi-annually or quarterly to include all the interested teachers, principals, vice-principals and physical education trainers.
On 31 January 2018, Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, inaugurated Khelo India School Games at the opening ceremony based on Guru–shishya tradition held at Indira Gandhi Arena.[2][3] from the 2019 events, Khelo India School Games were renamed to Khelo India Youth Games after Indian Olympic Association came on board earlier in September 2018.[4] The second edition of the event was kicked off in Shree Shiv Chhatrapati Sports Complex, a sports complex situated in Balewadi, Pune, by Sports Minister, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, and, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, Devendra Fadnavis.[5]
On 27 February 2019, PM Narendra Modi launched the Khelo India App at the Youth Indian Parliament in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi to promote sports and fitness.[6][7]
On 22 February 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first edition of the Khelo India University Games in Cuttack to give athletes the exposure of multi-disciplinary events at the university level.[8]
The inaugural 2018 games had students competing for 209 gold medals across 17 sports.[9]
Badminton, basketball, boxing, cricket (26 gold medals), gymnastics (20 gold medals), judo (16 gold medals), kabaddi, volleyball and wrestling (30 gold medals) were held at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium Complex. Athletics (36 gold medals), football, kho kho and weightlifting (16 gold medals) were held at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. Swimming at the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Swimming Complex (35 gold medals), hockey at the Dhyan Chand National Stadium and shooting at the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Range were other venues.[3]
In December 2020 four indigenous games were added – Gatka, Kalaripayattu, Thang-Ta and Mallakhamba.[10]
Only selected school kids below the age of 17 years are eligible to compete. In the individual sports, top 8 sportsperson from the SGFI National School Games, 4 nominations from federation, one from Central Board of Secondary Education, one from the host State and 2 wild card entries for the individual events will be selected. In team sports, the top 4 from the National School Games, 2 nominations by the federation, 1 from the host State and one from the organising committee will be selected. For archery, badminton and shooting, the top 16 from the National School Games, 8 nominations by the federation, 1 from CBSE, 1 from host State, 1 from organising committee, and 6 from wild cards will be selected.[3]
To identify the talent at grassroot level, each sports has a dedicated talent hunt committee, who will identify top 2 sportsperson for each sports and they will be given an annual scholarship of INR 500,000 for 8 years.[11] Additionally, medal winners in all Khelo India competitions will now be eligible for government jobs, as per a revised criteria.[12]
(T - Total medals won, G - Gold won, S - Silver won, B - Bronze won)