Fuelling sports aspirations
“We are committed to make India a sporting nation that we all dream of,” IOCL Chairman Shrikant Vaidya said.
Indianoil Corporation Limited (IOCL) earned the Best PSU for the Promotion of Sports award at the Sportstar Aces Awards 2022 for its unwavering support to the Indian sporting ecosystem in 2021.
IOCL promoted as many as 20 sports across disciplines with an estimated expenditure of ₹57 crore in 2021 and produced 61 athletes who represented the country, with 2■ of them winning 45 international medals.
“As a leading corporate of India, fuelling the needs of the nation, we are also fuelling the sports aspirations of our sportspersons in a very big way. We are committed to make India a sporting nation that we all dream of,” IOCL Chairman Shrikant Vaidya said.
In a fitting tribute to IOCL’S contribution to Indian sport, shuttler and IOCL athlete Lakshya Sen was plying his trade in the All England Open Badminton Championships semifinal at the time of the awards ceremony. “As we speak here now, one young IOCL-IAN, Lakshya Sen, is battling it out for the All England Championships semifinal. That speaks volumes about what Indian Oil is doing for sports,” Vaidya added. And, later in the evening, Sen became only the fifth Indian to reach the final of the prestigious tournament.
The country’s largest energy company also provided a fillip to the Indian women’s hockey team when it enrolled nine of its players under its news sports policy on the occasion of International Women’s Day earlier this year. “I would be very happy to share with you that we are one of the few corporates in the whole world, probably, which has a full-fledged hockey team, recently formed on the Women’s Day this year,” Vaidya said.