Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship program Khelo India has been mired in a morale of doping due to heavy scholarship and out-of-pocket allowance. Players have been using cocktails of several banned drugs to win medals in order to get an annual scholarship of Rs 6.28 lakh by getting selected in this scheme.
After 15 dope positive cases at the Khelo India Youth Games held in Guwahati, now seven medal winning players are stranded in dope at the first Khelo India University Games held in Bhubaneswar from February 22 to March 1. These include two weightlifters, two wrestlers, two from Kabaddi and another female athlete. A sample of the weightlifter from Delhi who has won gold has been found to have steroid and steamulent mefentermines such as nandrolon, stenzolol, trenbolon.
Numerous steroids have also been found in a sample of kabaddi players and wrestlers. This is usually rare when more than one banned drug is found in a player’s sample. All six players have been temporarily banned. They have not been banned due to the presence of specific substances in the female athletes’ case.
The number of players involved in the dope could have been more, many players did not participate when it came to know that NADA was sampling. In the weightlifting 160 players sent the entry but only 124 players arrived. Nada took 172 samples.
