ROURKELA: A major portion of the newly-erected boundary wall of the under-construction hockey training centre (HTC) at Bhalulata in Sundargarh’s Bisra block collapsed following a mild Nor’wester on Tuesday evening. After the incident came to light on Wednesday morning, local villagers blamed sub-standard construction work for the wall collapse.
Taking a dig at the BJD government, BJP MLA from Birmitrapur and member of the district mineral foundation (DMF) Shankar Oram said the HTC at Bhalulata is being constructed by the IDCO at a cost of around Rs 8 crore. On November 4, 2018, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik announced to set up HTCs with astroturf in all 17 blocks of Sundargarh district for the promotion of hockey.
“Flouting norms, the district administration sanctioned funds from Sundargarh DMF for the construction of the hockey training centres. Works started around two years back. In some blocks, HTCs have been completed while in others, the construction work is in different stages,” Oram said.
In the Birmitrapur Assembly constituency, one each HTC in Bisra, Nuagaon and Kuanrmunda blocks is under construction. “Ignoring all objections, the previous Sundargarh collector roped in contractors from outside and whimsically handed over work orders. The work is not being monitored. All my complaints of sub-standard work as well as poor quality of the astroturf were ignored. The collapse of the newly-erected boundary wall proves that the quality of work is poor,” he alleged.
Nine days back, the memorial statute of a hockey player between Birsa Munda Hockey Stadium and Rourkela airport had collapsed under similar circumstances. The MLA said the CM should take note of the sub-standard quality of work on projects taken up before the FIH Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023. The block development officer (BDO) of Bisra Anshuman Das did not respond to calls.