Rs 29-crore push to sports infra in Ludhiana

Ludhiana, popularly known as Manchester of India, spread over 169 square km area with an estimated population of 20 lakh, is in for a major upgradation of sports infrastructure.

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The Smart City Mission (SCM) has undertaken major upgradation and revamp of existing facilities, besides creation of new facilities to hone skills of budding sportspersons in the fields of hockey, badminton, basketball, table tennis and athletics.

Sharing details, Ludhiana Smart City Limited (LSCL) CEO, Aaditya Dachalwal, who is also the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation (MC) Commissioner, told The Tribune on Thursday that a corpus of Rs 29.04 crore had been earmarked for creation of new and upgradation and revamp of existing sports infrastructure in different parts of the city under the SCM. Rs 24.29 crore had already been spent, while the remaining amount is being spent to complete the pending works, he added.

Dachalwal said the work on five of the six projects was in the advanced stage of completion while the second part of the sixth project was also progressing fast.

Divulging the project-wise data, LSCL nodal officer Sanjay Kanwar disclosed that a hockey stadium has been refurbished at the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) at a cost of Rs 89.26 lakh, badminton court has been built at a cost of Rs 2.08 crore, an athletics track built at a cost of Rs 7.82 crore, basketball court has been developed at the cost of Rs 1.44 crore, and table tennis court was under construction at the cost of Rs 36.57 lakh, comprising first component worth Rs 24.23 lakh and second part costing Rs 14.34 lakh.

Kanwar, who is also the MC superintending engineer (SE), shared that the hockey stadium has touched 89 per cent completion, badminton court 80 per cent, athletics track was almost 100 per cent complete, basketball court was done 78 per cent, table tennis court’s first part has been completed 93 per cent, while its second component has reached 35 per cent completion.

Among 3 cities in Punjab

The Union Government had selected Ludhiana, Amritsar and Jalandhar under the SCM for developing these as smart cities in Punjab. They were among 100 cities in the country, and the three in Punjab were selected under the SCM to be developed as smart cities in the first round of the selection by the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in 2015.

Rs 1,000-crore corpus

The selected cities were granted Rs 1,000 crore each, on the equal sharing basis of Rs 500 crore each by the Centre and state, which can be leveraged for getting additional resources for funding the project implementation/ execution under the SCM.

Emphasis on meeting deadline: MC chief

MC Commissioner-cum-LSCL CEO Aaditya Dachalwal emphasised the importance of meeting deadlines, stating that, “Ludhiana, which is the industrial and financial capital of the state, having a large migrant population, is fast moving towards becoming a smart city with sports one of the main focus areas, as envisaged under the SCM of the Union Government and equal funding by the state government. Our major thrust is on completing the ongoing projects till March 31, which is the extended deadline fixed by the Centre.”