What Is the Khelo India Scholarship and Who Can Get It

Manu Bhaker competed at the first Khelo India Youth Games in 2018. Six years later she won two bronze medals at the Paris Olympics, becoming the first Indian to win multiple medals at a single Olympics in over a century. Saurabh Chaudhary, Anshu Malik and Srihari Nataraj came through the same program. All four are Khelo India finds.

That is what the scholarship is designed to produce. Whether it consistently does that at scale is a more complicated question, which this series covers honestly. But the starting point is understanding what the program actually is, because most families who could benefit from it either don’t know it exists or misunderstand what it offers.

Two things with the same name

The confusion starts here. “Khelo India” refers to two separate things.

The Games. The Khelo India Youth Games and Khelo India University Games are annual national competitions run by the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports. Athletes qualify through their states and compete against peers from across the country. The Games are the talent identification mechanism.

The Scholarship. This is separate from competing at the Games. After each edition of the Games, Talent Identification and Development Committees observe performance, conduct assessment camps and recommend athletes for scholarship support. The final list is approved by a High Power Committee chaired by the Director General of SAI.

You don’t apply for the scholarship. You earn consideration by competing at the Games.

What the support actually covers

The scholarship is structured as ₹5 lakh per year for 8 years. But that figure needs unpacking because most of it doesn’t arrive as cash.

Out-of-pocket allowance: ₹10,000 per month (₹1.20 lakh per year). This is what the athlete receives directly.

The remaining support covers training costs at the designated SAI center, diet, equipment, kit and medical insurance. These are managed institutionally, not disbursed to the family.

Total annual support per athlete works out to approximately ₹6.28 lakh when all components are counted. The PIB confirmed SAI released ₹30.83 crore for 2,571 Khelo India athletes in 2023-24 alone.

What this means practically: the scholarship removes the financial cost of high-performance training. It does not provide significant income to the family.

Who the program is actually for

The scholarship targets athletes in Olympic and Paralympic disciplines aged under 18 (Youth Games) and under 25 (University Games). Around 3,000 athletes are currently on the scholarship at any given time, with the program aiming to identify 1,000 new athletes each year.

The selection panel looks at two things: current performance relative to peers nationally, and developmental indicators suggesting significant improvement is possible with structured support. An athlete who wins but appears to have plateaued physically or technically is less likely to be selected than one who finishes lower but shows clear technical foundation and physical development appropriate for the age.

This matters because most families who dismiss Khelo India as “for medal winners only” are wrong. The talent identification mandate is explicit about future potential, not just current results.

The honest picture alongside the opportunity

The Print’s reporting on Khelo India documented real problems: disbursement delays, athletes experiencing months of administrative back-and-forth over documentation, poor coordination between the Centre and states in certain regions. The program has improved significantly since its first edition in 2018, but it is not uniformly well-administered across all sports and states.

This series covers both sides. The opportunity is real. The friction is also real, and knowing about it in advance helps families navigate it better.