COIMBATORE: The project to set up an international standard hockey stadium on the RS Puram Corporation school premises, which was halted midway, is set to resume through the Namakku Naame scheme.
"It has been planned to execute the project with an outlay of Rs 9 crore and the Municipal administration has given the green signal. As it might be under the Namakku Naame scheme, we have to raise public funds of around Rs 3 crore (33 per cent of the project) and the government will bear the remaining, i.e around Rs 6 crore (67 per cent)," said Pollachi MP K Shanmuga Sundaram.
The MP said he intends to meet corporate companies in Chennai and seek their support. "It has been planned to construct a full ground and a five a side pitch with international standards - both in the same premises. We hope the ground level work would resume soon after the fundraising," said P Senthil Rajkumar, General Secretary (in -charge) of the Hockey unit of Tamil Nadu and the secretary of Coimbatore district hockey association.
In July 2021, Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development Siva V Meyyanathan, who had inspected the site in the Coimbatore Corporation School ground at RS Puram, asked the Civic body to send a revised Detailed Project Report (DPR) to develop a multi-sport arena there. Following his interest, it was planned to bring under Namakku Naame scheme.
The work to build a hockey stadium began in 2014-15 and the Coimbatore city Municipal Corporation had allocated a total of Rs 2 crore to build lay synthetic turf. The corporation floated tenders, allotted work to the successful bidder, but the work got stalled a few months later allegedly due to political intervention, said sources. It may be recalled that the turf and materials went up in flames in January 2019.
"We have to use new materials. Once the hockey ground is open, it will provide an opportunity to several youngsters to step into national and international level tournaments". Senthil Raj Kumar added.