PU battles huge rush of visiting boxers on campus

Deepankar Sharda

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, November 22

Struggling to manage a huge rush of boxers on its campus, Panjab University, which is hosting the All-India Inter-University Boxing Championship, today said it was making every effort to accommodate the players, even as teams from nearly 18 universities came to the tournament “uninformed”.

“Before the commencement of the tournament on November 18 we had received approximately 728 entries. On the opening day of the event, suddenly 18 more teams arrived,” said PU Sports Director Parminder Singh.

As per the Association of Indian Universities (AIU), a team has to confirm its participation in any championship one month prior to its commencement. 

In addition, for individual sport, a detailed pro forma of players need to be submitted to the organisers, 10 days ahead of the commencement of the championship. 

However, during the ongoing boxing meet, around 18 universities submitted their entries on the opening day of competition.  

“As per the rules, the host has the discretion to allow or disallow such participants,” said the PU Sports Director. 

“Despite having no arrangements in place for all these uninformed participants, we tried to accommodate all the teams. But now some of the participants are making an issue out of it. We have around 1,200 boxers here, whom we are accommodating somehow. However, for some people we are either ways wrong,” he added.

As per the university data, teams from Central University (Bathinda), Annamalai University (Tamil Nadu), Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan, Indra Gandhi University (Rewari), Hindustan Institution of Technology and Science (Chennai), Tami Nadu Dr. Ambedkar Law University, Alagappa University (Tamil Nadu), Manav Bharti University (Solan), Kakatiya University (Warangal), RRBM University (Alwar), Singhania University (Rajasthan), Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth, ITM Gwalior, WLS University, Amity University, MVN Palwal, Subharti University (Meerut) and Punjab Technical University (Jalandhar) made their entries on the opening day of the event. 

On an average, a boxing team consists of 10 members in addition to two officials. 

Parminder Singh also said some of the participants were overstaying at the venue. “As per rules, the losers should vacate the accommodation within 24 hours of their defeat…but we are again accommodating everyone,” he said.