With three separate doping-related incidents keeping the National Anti-Doping Agency on its toes in the last one month, Director-General Navin Agarwal wants to implement a more pro-active system that focuses on nipping the problem in the bud.

NADA took a big step in that direction with surprise raids at the national athletics camp, which resulted in hurdler Jithin Paul being caught with several vials of Meldonium in his possession. The anti-doping agency is now planning to introduce the Athlete Biological Passport by 2018 for international meets, conduct more surprise raids and test athletes at the under-16 events apart from bringing out a priority sports list tailor-made for the country.

“With India number three in the world for doping related incidents, we want to conduct more surprise raids at different venues. NADA and various stakeholders from the Ministry and the various National Sporting Federations are working towards a legislation where doping is considered a criminal offence,” said Agarwal of the way forward.

The Athelte Biological Passport is probably the biggest project of NADA. Only 11 countries currently have a fully functional Athlete Passport Management Units for their athletes.

NADA is currently working on preparing a ‘priority sports’ list with the disciplines that are most likely to violate anti-doping rules and are expected to come under the scanner. “This priority list may be dictated by prize money involved, a history of violations and other factors. We are currently working towards identifying such sports.”

“The ABP is a project initiated by the WADA and we would like our top athletes, the ones that are regulars at international meets to be included in this program first. From the next year, it will be difficult for them to travel to all such meets without possessing an ABP,” says the ex-IPS officer.

According to World Anti Doping Agency’s website, the “Blood Passport is a standardised approach to profiling individual Athlete Haematological variables for the detection of blood doping (the ‘Haematological Module’ or ‘blood module’).

“The fundamental principle of the ABP is to monitor selected biological variables over time that indirectly reveal the effects of doping rather than attempting to detect the doping substance or method itself,” states the official WADA website.

Apart from the ABP, Agarwal and his team is also working on preparing a ‘priority sports’ list with the disciplines that are most likely to violate anti-doping rules and are expected to come under the scanner. “This priority list may be dictated by prize money involved, a history of violations and other factors. We are currently working towards identifying such sports.”

One of the sport that is highly likely to make the list is wrestling and WADA and Australian Sports Anti Doping Agency have asked NADA to take strict action against five Greco-Roman wrestlers and coach Kuldeep Singh for allegedly obstructing a dope test during the Asian Wrestling Championship.

Wrestling Federation to deal with Greco-Romans and coach

When asked about the same, Agarwal said no action has been taken against the wrestlers and the officials for the time being and that the Wrestling Federation of India has been instructed to deal with the matter in its own capacity.

Under WADA rules, the athletes and coaches could face a ban of two years for the offence.