Bhilaians on Friday participated with great enthusiasm in the annual Run-for-SAIl event to mark the foundation day of the public sector major — Steel Authority of India ltd (SAIl).
Over 1900 participants in different age groups and categories participated in the event organised by the Sports, Cultural and Public Amenities Group of Bhilai Steel Plant, the flagship unit of SAIl. The 5 km run was flagged off from Jayanti Stadium, Indira Place, Bhilai by S Chandrasekaran, Chief Executive Officer in the morning at 8 am.
Present on the occasion were RK Nehru, ED (MM), YK Degan, ED (W), SB Jagdale, ED I/C (projects), lT Sherpa, ED (P&A), SK Pradhan, ED (projects), PK Sinha, ED (Mines-Rowghat), SK Saha, ED (Mines), NK Kapila, ED (F&A) and other senior officers of Bhilai Steel Plant, office bearers of Bhilai Mahila Samaj and a large number of sports persons.
Participants were divided into different categories: up to Class VI, Class VII to XII, Over XII to 45 years, 46 years to 60 years in the girls/women and boys/men categories, voluntarily retired employees as well as former employees. On the conclusion of the race, Chandrasekaran presented prizes to the runners clocking the best timings. In the women’s category, Bimla Patel from Rajhara finished the race with the best time of 19 minutes 21 seconds. In the men’s category Ranjit Kumar Patel took 14 minutes 47.21 seconds to record the best time and in the process bettered his previous years winning time. Tejeshwari, also from Rajhara with a time of 22 minutes 34.16 seconds was the fastest in the Girls Category up to class VI while in the same age group in the Boys category, Gurpreet Singh clocked 19 minutes 34.43 seconds to came first.
Runners recording the best timing among all the Run-for-SAIl events organised on the day in different units of the company in the women/men category receive cash award of Rs 5000 each while for the best timers each in girl/boys category (up to class IV) there is a cash award of Rs 3000.