In order to nurture indigenous talent and prepare players for international sporting events, as many as eight sports academies will be set up in 2016-17 in the State. To achieve this objective, the department of Arts, Sports, Culture and Youth Affairs and the Central Coalfields limited (CCl) have launched a massive hunt for talent in the hinterlands of Jharkhand for the first batch which is likely to begin in the upcoming academic session.
The eight sports academies planned are hockey, football, volleyball, swimming, badminton, wrestling, archery and athletics for which the sports department and CCl will be selecting 200 candidates each from different parts of Jharkhand.
The CCl and the sports department are working jointly through ‘Jharkhand State Sports Promotion Society’ (JSSPS) that came into existence due to the Memorandum of Understanding signed between the two in 2015.
“Children of age group 8-10 years would be selected for the academy. In this year, we will start the academy in the first phase and in the next phase from next year we will make the full-fledged academy functional,” said Secretary of the department, Avinash Kumar.
As the MoU mandates, the subsidiary of Coal India limited would be selecting 200 candidates from 12 coal bearing districts and the sports department would find equal number of budding sportsmen from other parts of Jharkhand for training at International Sports Complex in Hotwar.
A team of CCl led by the CEO of the JSSPS would camp in all the 12 districts to select sporting talents who can compete in international events.
“It is necessary that we maintain transparency in the selection process criteria. Entire selection process will be video-graphed and will be uploaded on the portal. We are also selecting coach and have set stringent selection criteria because we believe that a student’s quality depends on a coach’s quality,” added CMD of CCl, Gopal Singh.
All the 400 selected from all districts of Jharkhand will be brought to Ranchi at International Sports Complex where they will be subjected to further tests to select 78 best talents that can be groomed in the eight sports discipline.
The society would bear the cost during the course of final round of selection and thereafter. The total cost for nurturing sportsmen would be split into 50:50 by the State government and the CCl.
The JSSPS would complete the selection process for coach tentatively by April as advertisement has been floated for coaches. The criteria set by the society seeks diploma in sports and one-year experience of leading the country in international sporting events.