Finally, repair of defunct lights, scoreboard on engineering department’s priority list

Deepankar Sharda 

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 1

All thanks to the Hockey India League (HIL), the local authorities have shifted their focus to repairing the floodlights and the digital scoreboard at the hockey stadium in Sector 42 here.

A total of 42 bulbs of the floodlights and the scoreboard, worth in lakhs, have not been working for the past six months. However, no repair work was initiated as the engineering department and sports authorities were busy doing other works. HIL is starting from January 21, while the local stadium will host its first match on February 9. The venue will host nine matches -- five league matches, two semifinals, the third place match and the final.

Notably, Punjab Governor VP Singh Badnore is likely to be the chief guest for the final, which made the local authorities to complete the work at the earliest.

A source in the sports department said that the engineering department is likely to float tenders on Monday to complete the repair work. “Earlier, there was a code of conduct due to Municipal Corporation elections. But now the engineering department has started the process of inviting the tenders. The floodlights will be repaired soon while the repairing work of the digital scoreboard may take some time. There is water damage and the LED is not working properly,” said the source.

Last January, the local authorities had purchased a new set of floodlights for the same event. However, the light coming out of the bulbs was way below the 1,200 lux needed from each of the four poles. The hockey stadium was lying in shambles since 2008-09 and in March 2015 the turf was replaced with a new one after a struggle of almost six years. The non availability of turf had made the local franchisee, to host their home matches at the Mohali International Hockey Stadium. Sources, also maintained that the Punjab Sports Department was offering local Punjab Warriors team to host their home matches at the Mohali based stadium free of cost but the franchisee opted Chandigarh over Mohali. 

Besides hosting Punjab Warriors matches, the local stadium has earlier hosted matches for Chandigarh Dynamos (Premier Hockey League) during 2007 and hosted Asian School Hockey Championship, Indira Gandhi International Gold Cup, Indo-Uzabekistak Cup (1977), Indo Pan American Hockey (1995) and many all-India hockey championships.

 The ground was also the home ground for Chandigarh Comets, a team of World Series Hockey.