Even after 14 yrs, Sports College awaits a permanent principal
LUCKNOW: The state government’s search for a permanent principal of Lucknow’s Guru Govind Singh Sports College seems to be an unending process as once again an official of the UP Sports Directorate has been given the additional charge of principal.
The post of permanent principal at the college has been lying vacant for the past 14 years since the retirement of the then principal Nirmal Singh Saini in 2006.
Affairs at the government’s two other sports colleges at Saifai and Gorakhpur too are being handled by acting principals as Etawah’s sports officer SK Lahiri is taking care of Saifai Sports College, whereas Gorakhpur’s regional sports officer, Arunendra Kumar Pandey is the acting head of Vir Bahadur Singh Sports College.
The charge of acting principal of Guru Govind Singh Sports College was given to UP Sports Directorate’s Shyam Sundar Mishra, who has been facing charges of alleged financial irregularities during his posting as Varanasi’s regional sports officer.
Mishra has replaced Lucknow’s regional sports officer, Jitendra Yadav, who reportedly had expressed his desire to quit the additional charge.
Before Yadav, another acting principal Vijay Gupta was suspended for his alleged ‘wrongdoings’.
However, the state government continued to experiment with two other officials of sports directorate i.e. joint director (sports), Anil Kumar Banodha and deputy director (sports) Raj Narain both of whom are facing financial recoveries for allegedly committing irregularities there.
Though the two denied the charges, but failed to explain as to why they were charged with financial irregularities during their postings at the sports college in the recent past and why they have been facing cuts in their salaries as part of recoveries?
“It’s making a mockery of sports and I feel that government should shut down all its three sports colleges immediately. It’s a big waste of money as the achievements of these sports colleges are almost zero for the last many years,” UP’s ex-director sports, Vijay Singh Chauhan said on Wednesday.
“I am surprised that in the last 14 years the government has failed to appoint a permanent principal to run one of its premier sports institutes. Why doesn’t the government hire an international sportsperson of repute on contract to run the sports college? We have plenty of international medalists and Arjuna awardees sportspersons in the state,” he added.
Chauhan further said: “You can’t expect good results from the students when you have nonprofessionals and non-qualified people as principals of the sports colleges in the state. Most of the coaches in these sports colleges are working on ad hoc basis or have been appointed through outsourcing so expecting anything amazing is impossible.”
He also said barring a few officers, including director sports, RP Singh, all others have played up to only national level and most of them don’t have the required academic and sporting qualifications to head sports colleges.
“I know many officers won’t be able to produce their original certificates of academic or sporting qualifications. Most of them are charged with financial bungling and the sports directorate is short of honest and dedicated officials. If this had not been the case, the three senior officers in the sports directorate would have not been allowed to continue in the job even after committing or facing charges of financial embezzlement,” said Chauhan, who also happens to be the ex-head of the sports college.
Another former principal of the Sports College, Neeru Kapoor, too advocated for hiring of a top sportsperson. “Appointing yet another officer as acting principal is not going to make any difference as it requires a permanent person, who can devote himself 24x7 as things are in a very bad shape at all the three colleges across the state.”
Kapoor added “Corruption has become the order of the day in these sports colleges and a thorough inquiry of all the officers, especially those who have been facing financial corruption charges, should be done immediately by the state government.”