New Delhi: Timely intervention by Sports Minister Ajay Maken has ensured that cue sports in India will not be pushed back. A day after Sports Authority of India (SAI) decided to stop funding on grounds of cue sports not being part of the Olympics and Asian Games, Maken stepped in to ensure that the decision was taken back.

 
Maken in a tweet response to a television journalist said that he spoke to Deputy General of SAI and directing them that funding be retained. "Spoken to DG Sports Authority of India. Directed that funding and support to Billiards & Snooker to be retained. No cut!," he tweeted from his official id.

SAI had, in a recent letter to the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI), stated that it would no longer fund the body "since billiards and snooker disciplines are neither part of the Asian Games 2014 or an event recognised in the Olympic Games of 2016 and 2020."

The move would have hit the cueists hard, denying them the chance to train and play abroad.

By Indian Sports News Network