The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) president Witold Banka has stressed the fact that India needs to up its game in the fight against dope cheats. If not, the dreams to host the Olympics may get hit as the bid needs a compliance report from WADA if India has to be taken as a serious contender by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).Indian officials led by Gujarat’s deputy chief minister Harsh Sanghavi and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) president PT Usha officially submitted India’s bid to host the 2036 Olympic Games last year in July. However Banka’s statement has put a spotlight on how much India is lacking when it comes to implementing anti-doping measures.Addressing the media on the sidelines of Global Anti-Doping Intelligence and Investigations Network (GAIIN) in Asia and Oceania meet being in New Delhi, the WADA chief said he expected stronger engagement and commitment from country’s authorities because the “biggest production of illegal performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) and illegal steroids is happening in India”.“Operation Upstream is a global operation. It’s an operation which is not only related to India. It involves many law enforcement agencies. There is no doubt that the biggest production of illegal performance-enhancing drugs and illegal steroids is in India. There is a big problem which we have in India with this. So the main target, the biggest producer of the world, is in India,” Banka said on Thursday.“But I have to say that I had a very productive meeting with the Director General of CBI. They offer their help, the collaboration, and we believe that we can work hand-in-hand to tackle this problem, to make this operation even more successful, and to make sure that we will help to catch those who are producing the PEDs here in India,” Banka, who as a former minister of sports and tourism introduced criminalisation of doping in sports, added.Olympics warningWADA chief further pointed to the fact that though he is optimistic about assurances from the government and National Anti Doping Agency (NADA) officials in this fight, he said he needs the authorities to accelerate and strengthen the system.“What I am going to take from this visit is optimism, because I have had a lot of positive declarations and as I said, starting from the Prime Minister’s Narendra Modi vision and putting sport in the central place of India’s political strategy for the future, it is extremely useful and helpful for the sporting authorities to tackle the problems significantly and strongly,” he stated.“As I said, the Olympic Games, World Championships, major sporting events are not possible without WADA, without WADA’s stamp, without WADA’s compliance regulations. So we are necessary to make these dreams come true. And I think it is very important from our side to work closely with the authorities here in India to help them to assist. We are not here to punish anyone. The major mission of WADA is to help, to assist, because we have the same goals. We want to have a clean sport, we want to have a level playing field for the athletes. We want to destroy those who are producing PEDs, who are killing athletes’ lives, who are destroying their health. This is the common vision, and I don’t see any discrepancies,” he added.‘Willingness to act’The WADA president said he knew there is genuine desire by both Indian officials and NADA to act against cheats but clearly more is required.“There is no doubt that we have a problem with doping in India. But I see the willingness from the government side and from the NADA side to address this issue, to work stronger on the anti-doping programme here, definitely need more intelligence and targeted testing here,” he said, pointing to few areas of improvement.“From my perspective as a WADA president, I would say, this process will take years. It’s not that it’s going to be solved in a few months. I would be very concerned if I see, year by year, the number of positive cases going down significantly. Then I would say that they are not doing a good job, that something is maybe suspicious. So, paradoxically, the more positive cases, it is sad news for you (Indians), but it is better from the system’s perspective, because then we have a perception that they are working, they are targeting those who are cheating the system,” he said.