National Rifle Association of India President Raninder Singh cleared the air over the reported exclusion of national junior pistol coach Jaspal Rana from the national camp, saying that it was because the junior shooters were not aware of a procedural change.

Revealing the details on Twitter, he said that the issue had been resolved and the former Asian Games gold medallist will now be part of the camp.

Rana had told Mail Today that he was removed from the preparatory national camp just three weeks before the ISSF World Cup in New Delhi. He said that the decision, just 15 days before the event backed by home crowd, which will also be a quota event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, took him by surprise as he had trained many of the young shooters who were part of India’s senior team now. Manu Bhaker and Saurabh Chaudhary are among the teenage shooters who were coached by Rana before making the senior team.

However Singh said that the issue arose as because the procedures were no completely in place as yet.

“The ACTC [Annual Calendar for Training and Competitions] program that SAI [Sports Authority of India] funds are essentially setup on the junior/senior pattern. Which means that we must seek additional sanction based upon demand,” Singh said in a tweet.

He explained that therefore a demand for a coach has to be separately raised by the shooters. Rifle shooter Anjum Moudgil had got this sanctioned for Deepali Deshpande, her coach who also coaches the Indian juniors.

The junior shooters, he continued, were not aware of this because this is a new development. “The gap has been that the juniors did not do so because this is a new issue — no procedure has been put in place officially, it’s on an ad hoc basis that individual demands are received, assessed and auctioned,” he continued.

“Today’s issue has been resolved. I have spoken to Jaspal and the athletes. He is starting with them now, the camp has only begun now so nothing is lost, procedural checks have been put in place and instructions to this effect for the future benefit of all shall be there for in team prep camps... if demanded by athletes senior coaches can help wards in junior team preps and junior coaches in senior team preps. Both ways it is OK with us. The NRAI is here to facilitate the benefit of its athletes first,” Singh said in his series of posts on the social network.

The NRAI President also insisted that Rana was among the most respected coaches and athletes and that there was no distinction between seniors and juniors when it comes to Team India.

Scroll.in reached out to Rana for a comment but he is yet to respond. This story will be updated when he does.