CHENNAI: The clouds over the oft-postponed National Games in Goa continue to darken. The Indian Olympic Association, on Monday, circulated an internal letter, informing that conduct of the Games will be subject to the hosts paying a fine of Rs 10 crore.
It has been learnt that the letter to Mukesh Kumar, chairman of the Games technical conduct committee, says that there will be no waiver of the fine. “The hosting of the 36th National Games, Goa in 2019 will be subject to fulfilling the penalty of Rs 10 crore as per the decision during the last meeting of the IOA executive council. Please note that there will be no waiver/reduction in penalty since Goa has now defaulted on 3 occasions about their commitment on dates,” the letter says. It also asks the organisers to propose new dates after consulting with state government.
Kumar, who was re-elected as general secretary of the Judo Association of Asia on Friday, confirmed the development. “IOA has already written to Goa to deposit the penalty. No waiver is possible. They have postponed the Games three times and the IOA EC (executive council) took the decision to impose the fine,” he said.
The fine was termed unfair by the Goa Olympic Association secretary Gurudutta Bhakta, who revealed that Kumar was yet to discuss this with them or the state government. “This kind of fine will be a deterrent for smaller states like Goa when it comes to hosting the Games,” he said.
“My state government has already put more than Rs 750 crores into building infrastructure for the Games and such a fine would be unfair on them. The postponements were not intentional; as you know, we lost our chief minister and elections were also declared. The government is ready to host the Games.” If the state government ends up paying the fine, the Games are likely to be held between October and November.
Postponements are nothing new for the National Games with only two editions being held in the last 12 years. It looks like the next few editions will suffer the same fate. The original plan (made as far back as 2010) was for Chhattisgarh to host it in 2014 with the date currently standing at 2019.
Uttarakhand was supposed to host the edition after that in 2018 or 19 with Meghalaya signing a contract to host the 39th edition in 2022. With the Goa chapter dragging on, it is impossible that any of these editions will be on schedule.
Mukesh Kumar elected Judo Union of Asia general secretary
New Delhi: Former Judo Federation of India chief Mukesh Kumar was, on Friday, re-elected as the general secretary of the Asian governing body at its ordinary congress at Fujairah in the UAE. Incumbent Judo Federation of India President Partap Singh Bajwa was elected as Vice President of Judo Union of Asia as well as president of South Asia Judo Federation.