AICF’s proposed action plan should include ‘one nation, one registration’, chess leagues, National Chess Centre: Stakeholders

CHENNAI — The All India Chess Federation (AICF) will soon roll out its action plan spreading the game further with focus on the entire ecosystem, said a top official.

Members of the chess ecosystem were of the view that the proposed action plan should include setting up of a National Chess Centre, holding chess leagues, to take steps to include chess in the National Games, Khelo India, reintroduction of `one nation, one registration’ system for players, and action against officials who impede the private tournament organisers by banning players and others.

“In two weeks, we will be rolling out the action plan for the game. It will be a bottom-up approach. The focus will be on the chess players, arbiters, coaches and others in the entire ecosystem,” Nitin Narang, AICF president, told IANS.

Narang said the action plan will be announced before May 7 after getting the AICF General Body’s approval.

He said the General Body meeting will be on May 4 or 5 held on a hybrid model-members can attend online and also in person.

However, he declined to comment on the contours of the proposed action plan.

It is also not known as to how the inputs for the action plan was gathered-whether from the players, arbiters and others- or from the state chess associations.

“The proposed action plan should include conduct of chess leagues and events that allows all super grandmasters (GM) to support themselves and make a living by playing. The National Championship should be made a much more prestigious event,” a GM told IANS preferring anonymity.

“AICF should also set up a full time National Chess Centre where chess players can collaborate and train and especially GMs. The Centre should be free for titled players. Further chess should be promoted in schools actively,” the GM added.

A chess tournament organiser told IANS that the AICF should solely focus on holding selection tournaments for all categories in classic, rapid and blitz chess formats.

He also said the Federation should hire Indian GMs and International Masters (IM) and pay them well to hold coaching camps for upcoming players.

As a matter of fact, it was the former Tamil Nadu chess champion S. Kailasanathan, through his former company Microsense, organised a coaching camp for upcoming talents under former World Chess Champion Grandmaster (GM) Vladimir Borisovich Kramnik in France in 2019 and later here.

Interestingly the two top young talents GMs D Gukesh (the challenger for the upcoming world chess title match against World Champion China’s GM Ding Liren) and GM R Praggnanandhaa underwent training in those camps and benefitted.

The game stakeholders also said action should be taken against those who impede holding of private tournaments, banning players from playing in private tournaments.

Several such disreputable incidents have happened in Tamil Nadu with AICF, Tamil Nadu State Chess Association (TNSCA) turning a blind eye in the past.

Be that as it may, five years ago, the AICF had announced its Vision 2020.

According to a former official, 80 per cent of those Vision 2020 proposals have been fulfilled.

However, the most expected Indian Chess League did not happen.

That aside, the AICF in 2021 introduced single point registration for players but later withdrew the same after state associations objected to it.

As per that scheme, the player registration amount of INR 250 will be shared equally between AICF and State Association (INR 125 each). Further, States are required to share INR 50 from their share with the District Association of the player.

This will ease the things for the player to avoid multiple registration at various levels and also provide insight to AICF regarding activities of District Associations for further development of game at grass root level, AICF had then said.

Referring to this, a chess tournament organiser said AICF should bring back the one nation, one registration system.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at v.jagannathan@ians.in)