Two Scoreboards, One City
Agamjyot Kaur Khanduja
SY B.Sc.
Reading time: 3 minutes
[Source]
When the Para Athletics Championships were held in New Delhi in late 2025, India was juggling two wildly different realities, one built for the world to see, and another still under construction at home. Inside the stadium, it was pure celebration; 2,200 athletes from over 100 countries, 186 medal events, and India walking away with a record 22 medals, six of them gold. Every win sent a cheer through the crowd, the air thick with anthems and hope.
Inside Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Delhi hosted its first World Para Athletics Championships, a huge deal for para-sport in India. Over nine days, with events from sprints to throws, India sent its biggest-ever team: 73 para-athletes. They smashed records, landed India in the top ten, and pulled off a performance years in the making. It was, by any sporting yardstick, a massive win.
But step outside, and it was like nothing had changed. On a global level, India has demonstrated tremendous potential in all sectors, but when it is the homeland in question, several structural issues continue to hold it back. Even in 2023, estimates said over 1.8 million people were still living in slum conditions in Delhi. The buzz about inclusion and achievement inside the stadium didn’t erase the daily grind outside. India topped the international scoreboard, sure, but the city’s development scoreboard barely budged.
Then the budget comes into the picture. When we look at the state of our country from a broader view it is hard not to question the allocation of public funds. The sports ministry got a record ₹3,794 crore for FY2025–26 of which Khelo India programme received the biggest share of ₹1000 crore. Reports on what the para athletics championship 2025 cost vary widely. Some put it at ₹40–50 crore directed towards organising and upgrading the event. Others say the real bill, including logistics and renovations, shot up to ₹350–450 crore. Meanwhile, schemes directed towards welfare of the society like the PM Awas Yojana housing schemes landed ₹78,126 crore. What we understand from this allocation is that the budgets aren’t really fighting each other; sports and housing are separate lines on the government’s spreadsheet. Still, when people see gleaming stadiums and look out at crumbling roads or crowded slums, the comparison is hard to ignore.
However, the contrast is not only about money, it is also about governance. Pulling off Delhi 2025 took teamwork between the central government, the Delhi administration, and a maze of sports bodies. In India, the Centre controls sports funding, while local governments handle city services and housing. That split often leads to mismatches. You might see a world-class stadium, thanks to central cash, right next to neighbourhoods still fighting for basics run by local authorities. Even within sports, the way money gets handed out is tangled up in politics. Programs like Khelo India don’t always spread the cash evenly, showing that sports budgets can double as political tools.
The event was not merely an attempt to provide an opportunity to the disabled, it was an opportunity for the county itself to gain support. And in order to do that, Delhi used a tactic to stage its development. This is described as “eventisation of development ”. It refers to the practice of concentrating resources, attention, and narrative around high-visibility spectacles that signal progress to external audiences. But Delhi isn’t the first one to use this formula. States rarely present the reality of their citizens; they present an aspirational snapshot. Paris is shown without its banlieues. New York without the Bronx. Beijing without migrant dormitories. Delhi without its resettlement colonies. Basically, events like these are an opportunity for a nation to present its best self.
From a geopolitical point of view, to host the Para Championships becomes a strategic move, not merely a sporting one. Such events help position India as a reliable partner for global sports and diplomacy, reinforcing its ambitions to host even larger stages like the Olympics, where the soft power payoff and geopolitical visibility are orders of magnitude greater, a reality showing that nations use these platforms to enhance international influence rather than just athletic prestige.
Yet prestige abroad does not automatically translate into legitimacy at home. Government funding of such events is often read as proof of misplaced priorities, as if every rupee spent on a stadium were taken directly from a housing scheme. But governance doesn’t work like a household budget. Hosting a championship operates on a different timeline and under a different set of incentives. Global events like these are not only the golden gateway of showing the world our competence but also a strategic signal to attract foreign investment. On the other hand, structural reforms are time consuming and complex, especially when it is blended with corruption and plastered red tapes. Hence, a nation seeking development therefore operates to build a reliable image of the country for other nations to view and fill the internal gaps for some self-reflection.
Delhi 2025 proved we can organise a world-class championship. We can manage 2,200 athletes, international media, and perfectly timed races. Now, if only we could apply that same coordination to Delhi traffic on a Monday morning. Until then, the city has clearly mastered the sprint.