After Bhubaneswar, the second venue for Hockey World Cup-2023 is Rourkela. That is why a high-level team of International Hockey Federation, Hockey India, State Sports Minister, State Chief Secretary along with other senior officers and technical teams visited Rourkela in 2nd week of December last.
They inspected the Biju Patnaik hockey stadium of Rourkela Steel Plant (RSP) which is the lone venue in Sundargarh to host matches. The stadium’s expansion for the World Cup has been delayed by several months and they are apprehensive whether it will be ready before World Cup or not.
While the apprehension was going on in every one’s mind for the Hockey World Cup-2023 at Rourkela, all on a sudden, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced on December 24 that the Odisha Government will build up a largest hockey stadium in Rourkela, to host Men's World Cup 2023. The new international level stadium with a seating capacity of 20,000 in Rourkela will be built as a tribute to the contribution of Sundargarh district to Indian Hockey. With all modern facilities, the stadium will be spread over 15 acres at the Biju Patnaik University of Technology campus in Rourkela.
After the CM’s declaration again another high-level officer’s team under the leadership of Chief Secretary Suresh Mohapatra visited the proposed Stadium site on January 19, 2021. On the instruction of Chief Minister Patnaik, they visited the site to expedite work for the country’s largest stadium to host World Cup matches as the second venue after Bhubaneswar.
Considered the cradle of hockey, Sundargarh district would get much-needed global exposure through the showpiece event. After the World Cup, the stadium would be used by the Sports department for development of hockey, Mohapatra said. He further said the IDCO is entrusted to set up the stadium and very soon work would start as target is made to complete the stadium by 2021 end. It is also known from reliable source that on February 15, 2021, the CM is likely to lay the foundation stone of the stadium. While welcoming the step for a new stadium at Rourkela, some people here argue as to why the matches are to be played in the BPUT campus, not somewhere else. They argue that though BPUT foundation stone was laid in 2003 but so far it is not properly functional here due to conspiracy of certain people of Bhubaneswar at the helm.
Though BPUT is at Rourkela but a parallel office has been functioning at Bhubaneswar and major activities here are operated from there. Even certain initial years the VC, Registrar and other senior officials were sitting over at Bhubaneswar and due to the fight of Rourkela people now they are sitting here.
Similarly, still many demarcated lands for BPUT are under encroachment for which the university has been functioning with less required quantity of land.