Examine the role of the Khelo India scheme in building India's elite sporting pipeline, with reference to India's performance at continental multi-sport events.

Khelo India is the Centre's flagship attempt to convert a broad school-and-university talent base into podium finishers. Its real test is not participation numbers but whether Indian athletes convert at continental events like the Asian Games — where the evidence shows a widening talent funnel resting on a still-fragile institutional base.

What the scheme has delivered for the pipeline

• Talent identification to elite entry: of the 501 athletes in India's 2026 Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games contingent across 36 disciplines, 65 came through Khelo India, and 310 are debutants — a measurable grassroots-to-Asiad route.
• Continental evidence of conversion: India's best-ever haul of 106 medals and a 4th-place finish at Hangzhou 2023 followed the scheme's first full cycle; the smaller 2026 contingent (down from 650+) reflects a shift from mass deployment to performance-linked selection, judged on medals-per-athlete.
• Financial deepening: the Cabinet approved a revamped Khelo India plus enhanced assistance to federations with an outlay of ₹36,441 crore for 2026-27 to 2030-31 [1], and Budget 2026-27 raised the sports allocation to ₹4,479.88 crore, with ₹924.35 crore for Khelo India and a decade-long Khelo India Mission [2].

Why the pipeline still leaks

• Delivery capacity: about 45% of sanctioned posts in the Sports Authority of India are vacant, filled by short contracts — incompatible with the multi-year athlete-coach continuity elite sport needs [3].
• Infrastructure on paper: of 24 National Centres of Excellence, some are non-operational or lack residential facilities, and kit and nutrition stipends remain unrevised for years [3].
• Governance instability: repeated federation suspensions — including FIFA's 2022 suspension of the AIFF — stall selection and entries; the National Sports Governance Act, 2025 answers this with a National Sports Board and Tribunal, though autonomy and jurisdiction concerns persist [4].

Khelo India has therefore built the entry ramp but not yet the institutional spine that sustains champions. Filling SAI vacancies within six months, granting SAI statutory status with a permanent coaching cadre, and making NCOEs residential-cum-educational [3] would align spending capacity with the enlarged outlay — turning continental success from a periodic surge into a durable, SDG-4-linked pipeline.