LUCKNOW Even after 51 years of its establishment, the prestigious Guru Gobind Singh Sports College (GGSSC) in Lucknow doesn’t have a permanent, sports-oriented leader. The leadership vacuum persists even as the Uttar Pradesh government has once again handed interim charge of the college to a Provincial Civil Service (PCS) officer without any sporting background.
The timing of this stopgap appointment could not be more awkward. The state government has announced plans to open three new sports colleges in July — a move that should have been accompanied by a comprehensive strengthening of governance and appointments. Instead, the appointment of yet another PCS officer as principal, replacing Atul Sinha, who held the charge of Lucknow’s regional sports office, signals a return to familiar temporary fixes rather than a structural solution.
Principal secretary (sports) Suhas LY confirmed on Monday that a PCS officer is posted as the new principal of the sports college and will also serve as secretary of the sports college society. “He is posted and will execute the responsibility of the principal of the sports college,” he said.
“We are creating new rules to govern all the sports colleges in UP. Accordingly, new regulations will positively impact the system’s structure, which is based on 1981 rules. These are being completely revamped. If it is revamped, the governance structure of the sports college will be completely revamped,” he added.
The college’s first principal, Shyam Sundar, a PCS officer, served in an ad-hoc capacity from 1975 to 1980. In the early years, other PCS officers — Girish Chandra Pathak, Jagjit Singh Sirohi, Brijendra Kumar Singh — and even an IAS officer, Lalit Verma, filled the principal’s chair until 1985. Since then, leadership has mainly come from within the UP Sports Directorate, with a string of officials including Anand Shukla, Vijay Singh Chauhan, Surendra Nath, TN Pandey, Nirmal Singh Saini and others carrying the responsibility, almost always on an interim basis.
The situation is worse now as three senior officials from the Sports Directorate are concurrently holding additional charges for three sports colleges. Atul Sinha, Lucknow’s regional sports office, is managing Guru Gobind Singh Sports College while also overseeing the directorate’s regional operations.
Gorakhpur’s Vir Bahadur Singh Sports College is run by Aley Haider, Gorakhpur’s regional sports officer while Etawah’s sports officer, Sarvendra Singh Chauhan, has been given charge of Major Dhyan Chand Sports College in Saifai. They manage college affairs apart from their regular workloads, a makeshift arrangement that insiders say stretches resources and dilutes accountability.
Attempts to secure a permanent principal, even on deputation, have not yielded results. A scrutiny committee in the Uttar Pradesh Sports College Society recently reviewed more than 80 applications and declared none fit for the published criteria. “None of the applicants was found matching the criteria meant for the appointment of a permanent principal,” an insider said.
The recruitment impasse is partly the result of stringent eligibility requirements announced in December last. The candidate must hold a postgraduate degree, have teaching experience from a recognized university, be a national or international-level sportsperson and possess at least five years of administrative experience in an educational institute or government organisation. The age bracket is 35–50, though this limit does not apply to deputation candidates.
While the criteria aim to combine academic, sporting and administrative credentials, officials argue they unintentionally disqualify many otherwise suitable candidates. “The requirements are quite tricky,” said one of the aspirants for the principal’s post. “Most of the applicants were from the sports directorate and applied on deputation. Given the conditions, it’s almost difficult to have the right candidate. The government needs to relax the criteria to get the right person,” he added.
Another senior official noted a practical problem. “Many former sportspersons in India lack the formal education or institutional administrative background that the job demands. Beyond eligibility rules, critics point to a reluctance to place strong, independent heads at sports colleges,” he said.
Those who oppose handing full-time charge to outsiders argue that the directorate prefers to keep control centralised. “It seems no one in the government wants to lose control of these sports colleges,” a senior official said. Their budgets, he added, are substantial — “almost double that of the entire sports directorate,” which manages sporting activities across all 75 districts of UP — making college leadership a coveted, politically sensitive position.
The functional consequences of this leadership deficit are tangible. Officials juggling multiple roles cannot give either job their undivided attention, and work often suffers. Students and coaches require stable, visionary leadership to build long-term sports programmes, manage infrastructure upgrades, coordinate with national federations and secure sponsorships and partnerships. Ad-hoc arrangements undermine continuity in coaching policies, academic oversight and long-term athlete development plans.
Resolving the issue requires both pragmatic short-term fixes and longer-term policy shifts. In the short term, the government could relax some eligibility parameters for deputation spells, allowing experienced administrators with strong track records to lead until permanent arrangements are feasible. A transparent, time-bound recruitment process with independent oversight would also reduce perceptions of political interference and favoritism.
The Guru Gobind Singh Sports College has produced sportspersons, including Team India cricketers like RP Singh and Suresh Raina and contributed to the sporting fabric of UP for more than five decades.
