VIJAYAWADA: “The great Indian cricketer and former coach Anil Kumble has started the 10 weeks-sports programme, which blends both sports and education wonderfully. In association with his programme, we are going to launch the projects Gandiva and Panchjanya,” announced CM Chandrababu Naidu, as he laid the foundation stone of the Amaravati International Sports Complex, at Vidhyadharapuram, here on Tuesday evening.
“Under Panchjanya, we will identify teenagers, who are physically fit and train them; while the boys will be trained at training centres in Visakhapatnam, Narasaraopet, Nellore, and Anantapur, the girls will be trained in Kakinada, Gudivada and Nellore,” he said.
“Doesn’t India have the capability to host Olympics? I demand the Central Govt bid for Olympics; it can be held in Amaravati. We will develop Amaravati as a sports hub,” the CM added. Naidu declared to the applause from the gathering present on the occasion.
“We are creating robust infrastructural facilities for players, under the Gandiva scheme to encourage many more players. We will not just focus on cricket,” he said. In the course of his speech he mentioned how Pullela Gopichand was allotted land to run his academy and PV Sindhu today was the result of that. Anil Kumble, who had unveiled the statue of CK Naidu in Machilipatnam on Tuesday morning, along with Kollu Ravindra, Sports minister and Ankamma Chowdary, chairman of the Sports Authority of Andhra Pradesh (SAAP), spoke about the rich cricketing history of Andhra Pradesh and how he expected many more talented players to emerge from the State.
After praising CK Naidu as a path-breaker for Andhra cricket in the morning, Kumble said that he was looking forward to seeing many more players in other sports emerging from the State. “Project Gandiva will certainly be a big success and I am honoured to be associated with it. I hope more athletes will make it to the top from this State,” Kumble told the gathering at Vidhyadharapuram, in the evening.
Kollu Ravindra, who had attended the ceremony of unveiling of CK Naidu’s statue in Machilipatnam at Zilla Parishad centre in the morning had also announced the inauguration of a stadium, where the statue had been installed.
“The stadium has been built in 13 acres of land. It would train future CK Naidus, as he was also from Machilipatnam,” he said.