Football is the most popular and organized sport in Chitwan. Cricket and volleyball are the next most popular sports. There are currently 21 sports-related organizations registered with the District Sports Development Committee. Among the registered sports associations, except for football, cricket, volleyball, karate, and taekwondo, all are inactive.

The District Basketball Association is also inactive. Players are suffering due to the inactivity of the association. Private organizations in the district have been organizing sporadic competitions. However, they have not been able to hold competitions in collaboration with the local government. The lack of competitions has stalled the production of new players. Sandesh Gurung, who has been representing Chitwan in national-level competitions, says that there is difficulty in producing players in the district due to the lack of continuous competitions.

‘I have been continuously associated with basketball for nine years,’ he said, ‘I have not been able to play many competitions, we players have been active and have played provincial-level competitions.’ Gurung says that attention should be paid to this as new players will be produced if competitions are organized continuously. ‘From time to time, sporadic competitions are held through the efforts of private organizations, but they are not enough to produce players,’ he said, ‘If there is no competition with government support, basketball will not progress.’

Gopal Gurung is the president of the Chitwan Basketball Association registered with the District Sports Development Committee. He is away from the game. 'I am not able to give time to the game,' he said, 'I am preparing to hold a competition soon and hand over the leadership to the youth.' He has been in the leadership for eight years. However, there are no other fellow travelers in the committee to support him. Some have gone abroad. Some are inactive even though they are here. 'I felt like I was alone, I have collaborated in competitions organized by some organizations,' he said, 'I could not hold the competition myself, which is why the association became inactive.'

The Sports Development Committee has tried to make the association active, but it has not been successful, says Ramji Dhakal, the head of the committee's office. 'We are trying to get the association to organize competitions,' he said, 'but it does not seem to be working, we are having difficulty sending basketball teams from the district to the province.' Even in such a situation, the youth here are trying to promote basketball.

In line with the aim of producing players, Bharatpur-based Aarambh College has started the ‘Aarambh Cup’ basketball tournament from this year. ‘We are thinking of continuing the competition by keeping it in the annual calendar,’ said Suraj Shiwakoti, principal of Aarambh College, ‘I am confident that this will help in producing players.’ Since it is an inter-college ‘Plus Two’ level competition, young players are competing. 24 teams from Chitwan and Nawalpur have participated in the competition.