Evaluate the effectiveness of the Khelo India and TOPS schemes in converting public investment into international sporting outcomes.

India funds sporting excellence through two linked schemes. The Target Olympic Podium Scheme (TOPS, 2014) supports elite athletes [1]. Khelo India (2016-17), extended to 2025-26 with ₹3,790.50 crore, builds the grassroots base [2]. Both have built up facilities, talent and elite support, but they have only partly turned that spending into medals.

Effectiveness: Where Investment Has Delivered

• Elite podium support: TOPS pays for foreign training, coaching and stipends. It backs 51 Core, 52 Para Core and 130 Development athletes, and it helped India win medals at Tokyo 2020 and Paris 2024 [1].
• Infrastructure base: Khelo India has approved 323 infrastructure projects and set up 1,041 Khelo India Centres [2].
• Talent pipeline: KIRTI screens children aged 9–18 to build a pipeline towards top-10 by 2036, top-5 by 2047 [3].
• Fiscal commitment: Khelo India got ₹1,000 crore in FY 2025-26 [3].

Limitations: Where Conversion Falls Short

• Narrow elite base: TOPS backs athletes who are already near the podium. Its money therefore goes to sports India already wins, such as archery, boxing and wrestling. It does little to build new swimmers or gymnasts.
• Missed targets: India sent a 503-member contingent to the 2026 Asian Games with the aim of beating Hangzhou's 106 medals [4]. It fell short, which shows how weak India is in medal-rich individual sports.
• Input-based accountability: Budgets report how much is spent, not how many medals each sport returns. Federations have no public medal targets, so none of them can be held to account for a shortfall.
• Sports-science gap: The Sports Minister himself calls sports science vital to raising the medal count [5]. Yet it is still thin below the elite level.

Verdict: The schemes work well at building inputs: facilities, participation and elite support. They are only partially effective at producing broad-based international results.

Taken together, Khelo India has widened the base and TOPS has sharpened the top, but the middle of the pyramid is still weak. Sport-wise medal targets for each federation, outcome-based budgeting, a CAG performance audit like its Commonwealth Games 2010 review [6], and more money for individual sports and sports science would make public spending accountable. These steps would also make the goal of a top-10 finish by 2036 credible.