Forty coaches, 12 centres in urban areas, a few in the rural ones of Jalandhar district

Rachna Khaira

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Tribune News service

Jalandhar, May 28

Call it an availability of sports talent only in urban areas or the comfort zone of coaches in cities, a majority of the 40 sports coaches, employed with the District Sports Department in over 12 centres, are based in the city and nearby villages only.

Despite the merging of the Punjab Institute of Sports (PIS) with the Punjab Sports department, there is hardly any hope for sports talent hidden in rural areas.

While now the District Sports department is rich by over eight more coaches, taking the total number to 40 in over 12 major sports centres, there is hardly any coach and sports centre running in rural areas.

Surprisingly, the whole process, beginning from sports trials, the allotment of sports wings and also the deployment of coaches in district are made in urban areas.

At present, there are over nine coaches in hockey, seven in athletics and four for boxing deployed in various training centres. While six of the hockey coaches were deployed in the city, including the Olympian Surjit hockey Academy and Government Girls School at Nehru garden, the other two were deployed in Sansarpur village in the Jalandhar cantonment area. The other coach is running a training centre at Dhanowaali village that too is also on the outskirts of the city.

Also, in athletics, all seven coaches deployed in the city and none was asked to provide training to youths residing in over 921 villages in the district. In boxing too, both coaches were deployed in two training centres situated each on the Ladowali road and at the Sports School.

Also, the situation was found to be no different in other games. There are four weightlifting coaches deployed with the district Sports Department, While two coaches were deployed at the Phillaur, the other two coaches were deployed each at Guru Gobind Singh Stadium and at HMV College.

Table tennis, badminton, cricket, handball, gymnastics, swimming the department has only a single coach each, which too were deployed in various city centres.

District Sports Officer Vijay Kumar accepted the fact that the sports infrastructure was indeed confined to urban areas only, he said the centres were established long ago.

“During the time of the establishment of they centres, they were part of remote areas in the district. However now, with the increase of municipal limits, these have almost become part of the central city area only. But we have sent a proposal to the department to open more centres in remote areas,” said Kumar.

He said at present, the only platform provided to the rural youths was the block level games organised by the sports department once a year.

“Initially, there was Rajiv Gandhi Khel Abhiyan (RGKA) where only rural youths have participated, but now with Khelo India taking its place, a majority of the players come from urban areas only. Since they have exposure to better training and sports infrastructure, they overshadow the rural talent very easily,” said Kumar.

He added soon he would moot a proposal to hold rural games at the district-level with the support of various NGOs and social welfare organisations.