Hockey infra to get a boost with astro-turf in Meerut; Barabanki next
The hockey infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh will receive a boost when an international-standards astro-turf becomes functional at Kailash Prakash Stadium in Meerut in August.
The astro-turf, being laid by Insolox Sports and Infrtech Pvt Ltd, would be the first one in the region. Jhansi, Ghazipur, Rae Bareli, Banaras Hindu University (Varanasi), Gorakhpur, Faizabad (Ayodhya), Bareilly and Rampur already have one astro-turf each.
Saifai and Lucknow have two astro-turfs. The state capital also has a turf at Sports Authority of India’s centre in Sarojaninagar. After Meerut, Insolox Sports would lay another astroturf in Barabanki. The turf is being supplied by an Italy-based company Limont.
Besides 14 full hockey turfs, the state has two mini turfs (one each at Kanpur and Agra), which is meant for five-a-side hockey that has now become quite popular globally with International Hockey Federation conducting world championships and other events on a regular basis. “Uttar Pradesh has a rich history of hockey and we are well known as the hub of the sport, regularly feeding talent to the Indian men’s and women’s teams. The new infrastructure at Meerut would give an opportunity to young kids to excel in the sport in future,” UP’s director sports RP Singh said on Monday.
Singh, who is also the secretary of the Uttar Pradesh Hockey and selector of the Indian hockey team, said the success rate of state teams at junior hockey events in the domestic circuit was ample proof of the all-round development of the discipline in the state. “Our juniors have been doing wonders at the nationals for the last many years. Response to the Junior Men’s World Cup in Lucknow in 2016 was tremendous and it showed how fans as well sportspersons are attracted to the game,” said Singh, who is also chairman of Hockey India’s high-performance committee.
In fact, the turf at Meerut, which is being laid at a cost of over Rs 5 crore, could have been completed much earlier but the pandemic delayed the project.
But now with adequate funds released, the project, which is a joint venture of Khelo India and the Uttar Pradesh Sports Directorate, is likely to be completed by August 15. “We have been doing our best to get the work done by the end of July and I am sure it would be functioning by August 15,” Insolox Sports director Himanshu Srivastava said. “We have regularly been developing quality sports infrastructure in the state since 2012,” he said. The company has laid UP’s first ever artificial football turf at a private university in the state capital.
“We are hoping that in the near future more such football fields would come up in the state,” he said.