In an attempt to promote sports on a wider scale, the State’s department of Sports will soon start Centre of Excellence for four different sports here in Ranchi. From inviting applications for hiring trained coaches to forming programme management unit (PMU), the department is gearing up for the Olympics 2024.
“The centre of excellence will be set up for training the best players targeting the Olympics 2024. Besides this, selection of consultants for setting up programme management unit (PMU) has been complete. PMU will help the department in formulating sports policy, Athletic development programmes. The team will keep a track of budding players as well,” said Sports and Youth Affairs Minister, Amar Kumar Bauri while addressing the press on Monday.
The Centre of Excellence dedicated to Hockey, Archery, Badminton and Football will be started in Ranchi. In the first phase, the department will focus on two sports. “In the first phase Hockey and Archery sports centres will be opened here at Astro Turf Stadium, Morabadi and Khelgaon respectively. later on, in the second phase Badminton and Football will be started at different centres under the supervision of experts,” said Director (Sports), Ranendra Kumar.
The department will rope in a few renowned former players to polish the talents of budding players and prepare them for national and international events. “The Sports Department will sign an agreement either with some renowned Sports Academy or will approach the former players for imparting training to the players admitted at the Centre of Excellence. Some foreign country sports academy may also be engaged in this project,” added Kumar.
The Sports Director who chaired the meeting of District Sports Officer (DSO) on Monday organized for the first time, further added, “Under another innovative scheme, the department will also send a few selected players who have achieved feat or have the caliber to achieve something extraordinary in their respective sports domain for getting training either at a sports centre of his/her choice or to any foreign country tour.”
The Department has been sanctioned Rs. two crore for taking up the project. District Monitoring Committee (DMC) has been formed. The Department has also invited applications for appointing coaches. In two categories, the applications have been invited. A person applying for certificate course will undergo six weeks training and must be an intermediate pass including a State level player. The applicants can apply either for a certificate course programme or for a diploma degree, seeking the eligibility criteria.
For getting 11 months diploma degree, an interested candidate must be a graduate while having played at national level. 40 seats for certificate course while 20 seats for diploma course has been fixed by the Department. “The diploma holder candidates will have to serve the State government as coaches for two years. The degrees will be given by National Institute of Sports,” Kumar said.