New Delhi, Feb 2 : Strengthening its support for sports in India, the Union Government has approved continuation of Scheme of Assistance to National Sports Federations (NSFs) with an outlay of Rs 1575 crore for XV Finance Commission Cycle -- 2021-22 to 2025-26. The Scheme of Assistance to NSFs is the flagship Central Sector Scheme and the main source of funding for preparation of national teams for all major national and international competitions, including the Olympic Games, Para-Olympics, Asian Games, Para Asian Games, Commonwealth Games (CWG) and other major international tournaments. "Mr Anurag Thakur, Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports expressed his heartfelt thanks to Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman for according approval for continuation of Scheme of Assistance to NSFs. Mr Thakur stated that this will give a big boost to the country's quest for achieving a place of pride in sporting arena. "The outlay in the cycle will therefore be extended to NSFs to train and field national teams for national and international competitions between 2022 and 2026, prime among them, the Commonwealth and Asian Games of 2022, Olympics and Paralympics 2024 and Asian and Commonwealth Games in 2026," the Sports ministry said in a statement. The financial support extended by the ministry through this Scheme will be used by NSFs to conduct national coaching camps, procure sports equipment and consumables, provide training of international standards to athletes, conduct data analysis on the performance of athletes, provide sports science support, provide recovery and rehabilitation to athletes with injury, engage foreign coaches and high performance directors, as well as to set up a professional administrative system within the NSFs. Besides providing support to elite athletes through the NSFs, the scheme also sets out to improve the bench strength of Indian athletes through a strong talent identification and development system so as to achieve sporting excellence and drive India towards becoming a sporting power house. The support to NSFs through the Scheme has yielded superlative results in the past few years. India won 7 medals in Tokyo Olympics 2020, in 6 separate disciplines, the highest Olympic medal tally for the country. In Tokyo Paralympics 2020, India won 19 medals, surpassing 12 medals won by the country in all previous Paralympics put together. India got 66 medals in CWG, 2018, which was the best performance at an overseas CWG, 69 medals in Asian Games 2018, which was India's highest ever tally at Asian Games, 72 medals in Para Asian Games 2018, which was India's highest ever tally at Asian Para Games and 13 medals in Youth Olympics Games 2018, which was India's highest ever tally at Youth Olympic Games. /IANS