The two National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC) scheme centres at Ranchi and Gumla which were closed in April will be reopened by Sports Authority of India (SAI) next year.
Confirming this information, SAI headquarters secretary Neeraj Kansal on Monday told The Pioneer that presently the proposal was being looked into and would be implemented by next year. However, Neeraj was refused to divulge more information about the new development.
Ranchi’s NSTC centre for hockey girls was functioning at Government Girls’ High School, Bariatu. While both hockey and football games for boys were being imparted at NSTC set up in St Ignatius High School, Gumla.
In June this year, SAI director general (DG) Jiji Thomson during his visit to Jharkhand for inspecting the SAI centre at Hazaribagh had assured to re-open these NSTC centres on the request of principals of both the mentioned schools.
It may be noted that these two training institutes were closed on April 1 for not fulfilling certain norms of SAI for past two or three years.
According to SAI Ranchi Hockey coach SK Mohanty such centres were equivalent to feeding centres wherein teenagers were given the basic training on the mentioned sports since the age of 12 years.
“The four years training then helped us to locate the budding skills of the players for State and national tournaments. Unfortunately, the closing has made hard for us to train players at the grassroot level,” said the coach.
The SAI website points out that the concept of the scheme is to stay, play and study in the same school. Scientific scouting of talent at optimum age level and nurturing them systematically is most essential for converting the genetically and physiologically gifted children in to future medal hopes in various competitions at national and international levels, mentions the website.
“This scheme is designed to broad base sports at grassroot level through adoption of schools which provide an ideal environment for study and sports,” added Mohanty.
local sports officials informed that the DG had quoted both these two NSTC based centres as best in India since two football Olympians including Bimal lakra and International hockey players like Asunta lakra and Savitri Purty have been produced by these institutions.
For the funding of these schemes SAI headquarter officials had requested the DG to provide them recurring funds. The owners of these two sports institutes will be asked to maintain and operate their areas through an agreement of 10 to 15 years period.
“DG had already stated that he will present the requirement for funds in the budget of 2014-15,” maintained an official of SAI Ranchi. A senior SAI headquarters officer said that these SAI training centres would have to produce at least 20 players and two teams of national level as a
compulsory SAI regulation.