UP’s first velodrome ‘faces’ political, financial hurdles?
Ever since the construction began in 2015, only 11 percent work has been completed so far
LUCKNOW :While construction of Uttar Pradesh’s first-ever cycle velodrome (arena for track cycling) at the state government-run Guru Gobind Singh Sports College in Lucknow began in February, 2015, the project is yet to see the light of the day.
A sight of a few labourers engaged in digging work and some carrying the kiln bricks from one place to another has been a routine scene ever since the construction 2015. And going by the paces of the work, it seems that construction work would keep continuing over the next many years.
On record, Rajkiya Nirman Nigam, the construction agency has only completed around 11 percent of the work. “With the change of power in the state things have changed and we are helpless as in the last five years so far we have received only Rs 40 crore for the project, which had an initial estimate of Rs 167.93 crores,” said an official on condition of anonymity.
“If this remains the pace of allocation of funds to the velodrome, it will take another five years to complete at least and by the time we finish our work, the constructed building (of now days) would be 10-12 years old and may be requiring repairing etc.,” he said. “Why to blame us for the delay, pay us now and we will get it ready by next year.”
For record, the construction agency had promised to complete the work of the velodrome by March 20, 2020 and now it has extended the date to March 2021. “Now, the revised cost of the velodrome has been escalated to Rs 187 crore (it includes GST too) and if the snail pace of construction (due to slow allocation of budget) continues, it would cost over Rs 200 crores to the state government, if it is completed in the next five years,” he added.
“The idea of having a cycling velodrome was politically motivated as some officials in the UP Sports Directorate came up with this idea as they wanted to please the top bosses in the political set up then,” former deputy director sports, Neeru Kapoor said on Thursday.
“Why do we need a cycling velodrome when we are not at all a potential force even in the domestic circuit? We hardly have cyclists in the state. The money being spent on the construction of this velodrome is a waste and has been a crime to spend such a huge amount from the government exchequers,” he said.
He, however, said that many such unusual development of sporting infrastructure across the state have no significance. “The construction of a boxing arena at the Chowk Stadium here is a waste of money as there are hardly 20-25 boxers, who train regularly and the facilities for them at the KD Singh ‘Babu’ Stadium are good enough.”
“Instead of this, the sports directorate should have constructed an Olympic-sized pool at the Chowk Stadium as it is more of utility as the area has plenty of swimmers, who could achieve success at the top level if get a chance for regular training,” he said, adding, “But we understand better that what such unusual construction of sports infrastructure means to the people concerned?”
Acting principal of the Guru Govind Singh Sports College, Jitendra Yadav refused to have any updates about the construction of the international standard cycling velodrome.
“I have been looking after the charge of principal here for the last four months and I don’t have any information about the construction work at the velodrome,” said Yadav.
“I don’t think that even the sports college have any papers related to the construction of the velodrome and know nothing about this. Only yesterday, I have been told to collect all the information about this and soon I will have a file related to this, but for now I don’t have anything to tell you about this,” added Yadav, who has also been the regional sports office of Lucknow.
UP Cycling Association’s secretary-general RK Gupta too hasn’t visited the construction site of the cycling velodrome, but sounds happy to have such a facility in the state. “We have over 100 cyclists across the state and our cyclists have consistently been doing fine at the national level.”
“If we have a cycling velodrome even at Lucknow, we can think of holding national championships on regular basis as long back in 1984-85, we had the only Inter-District Nationals at Kanpur,” said Gupta, adding, “Even in the trials the danger of being hit on the roads by heavy traffic continues to haunt our cyclists, so we need to have a velodrome at all cost.”