Even Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik seems to have no escape from red tapism. His pet project hockey nursery, touted to be the only one of its kind in the country, at the Panposh Sports Hostel (PSH) seems to have finally got a quiet burial. There is no clear word on the PSH from the government and to make things worse, the Sports Department has given the go ahead to operationalise a multi-disciplinary nursery (tribal sports complex) at the State Government-run Sports Hostel in Sundargarh.
This means an end to the hope of launching the hockey nursery, stone for which was laid by the Chief Minister himself in 2007. Sources said a multi-disciplinary sports nursery with an intake capacity of 100 is in the offing for tribal students.
The Panposh Sports Hostel has to its credit nurturing many tribal boys and girls who have made a mark in the national and international hockey.
The idea behind the proposed nursery - the brainchild of former Sundargarh Collector Krishan Kumar - was to catch the kids and hone their skills in hockey. The proposal was to select 20 boys and 20 girls, aged eight to 12 years, and train them.
The administration then had not taken the Sports Department into confidence which proved to be its nemesis.
Sports officials claimed before 2007, the Government of India had sanctioned a multi-disciplinary nursery for the district and the hockey part was diverted to PSH. They alleged that the sports bureaucracy took this opportunity to derail the PSH project.
Collector Rupa Roshan Sahu said Chief Secretary Bijay Patnaik during his recent visit inspected the Sports Hostel in Sundargarh and wanted the tribal sports complex to be operational with the available infrastructure.