3 months on, no policy on reallocation of grounds

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 2 

Three months on, the UT Education Department is still to come up with a policy on reallocation of cricket grounds at various government schools in the city.  

Earlier, on March 28, the Office of the District Education Officer had instructed the heads of the institutes concerned to get their school playgrounds vacated by March 31. 

“Activities of various cricket academies/associations running in government schools of Chandigarh are hereby discontinued with immediate effect. “The heads of the concerned institutes are directed to get their schools’ playgrounds vacated by March 31, 2018,” the order had stated.

“We are working on framing a policy for re-allotting these grounds.  It will be completed soon,” said District Education Officer (DEO) Anujit Kaur. 

Pertinently, the department, in violation of its orders, recently allowed unaffiliated units to organise cricket championships on the government school grounds, and that too free of cost. 

Anujit Kaur, though, denied giving any such permission. “No written permission was given to any unaffiliated unit to organise any championship,” she insisted.  

As per sources, the department had allowed the UT Cricket Association — a welfare body — to organise corporate league matches at the Sector 26 based Government Model Senior Secondary School grounds. However, the venue had to be shifted following the UPSC examination.

Director Public Instructions (Schools) Rubinderjit Singh Brar confirmed that there was no such provision to allot these grounds to private associations for hosting matches. He, however, insisted that a policy would be framed keeping in mind the players’ interest.  

“We are still working on the policy. It is not an easy job as we have to keep players’ interest in mind. We are trying to bring out the best,” said Brar.

The private academy owners, who used to run their operations from the government school grounds, are eagerly waiting for the final policy, so that they could claim the amount of money they had invested in building the sports infrastructure and maintaining of the grounds.