World Yoga Day 2023: Several Practitioners Raise Voice Against Absence Of Standardized Policy

Haryana: In line with several yoga practitioners and trainers, there has been no serious attention given towards hiring a professional yoga coach. Keeping the view of the international yoga day, there have been a ruckus in hiring along with irregularities.

Recently, winner from well-known organizations such as School Games Federation of India tournaments and Khelo India Games plus a few yogacharyas (yoga trainers) have been taking initiatives for changes. They have written to the Union sports minister Anurag Thakur about the grievances.

What do yoga coaches say:

"While yoga was announced as a sport by the the Union sports minister Kiren Rijiju in December 2020, no instructions have been passed down, nor has a policy been issued by the ministry of sports declaring yoga as a sports. A formal notification declaring yoga as a sport for employment purposes is yet to come," Vikas Pachouri, a yoga coach at the National Institute of Sports (NIS) in Haryana.

Moreover, he also mentioned about how the picture looked a couple of days ahead of Yoga Day. "Days ahead of the International Yoga Day, they handpick teachers from schools/colleges and call them yoga trainers after providing them training for a couple of days. Physical education teachers are even junior basic teachers, not just in Haryana, but in Punjab and Madhya Pradesh too, are being redesignated as yoga teachers in this way," he said.

In addition, President of Yoga Front Organisation, Roshak Pathak said, "The Ayush ministry has set up its own Yoga Certification Board."

“There is no uniformity, which has led to chaos and a sense lack of direction in our discipline, which is one of the ancient sciences of India," said Sahil Kumar, another NIS coach.