With the State government “not enthusiastic to hand over the entire Gachibowli sports complex to the Sports Authority of India (SAI),” the Regional Centre of the SAI in Hyderabad continues to remain a dream.
A team of high-level officials from the SAI interacted with top bureaucrats of the State government, including Sports Authority of Telangana State (SATS) vice-chairman and managing director A. Dinakar Babu and chairman A. Venkateshwar Reddy, at the venue on Wednesday morning to explore the possibility of a regional centre.
Later, the officials, which included Adviser to Telangana government B.V. Papa Rao and Principal Secretary B. Venkatesham, met State Sports Minister T. Padma Rao Goud at his chambers for another round of discussions.
It was revealed that during the talks, SAI officials made it clear that for setting up the Regional Centre, a memorandum of understanding has to be signed handing over the entire sports complex to them.
This idea was not welcome by the State government, which felt that this would effectively mean no scope for athletes in the State, who would be out of the purview of the SAI, to utilise the world-class infrastructure there.
“Once the centre is set up, the SAI will have exclusive administrative control over the sports complex which will eventually become the venue of most of the national camps too. This will directly have a bearing on State athletes,” Mr. Venkateshwar Reddy told The Hindu .
“However, the SAI has accepted to upgrade it’s existing Sports Training Centre to a Centre of Excellence for those in the age group of 14 years to 25 years by giving preference to Telangana athletes,” Mr. Reddy said.
Not giving up
It is also informed that despite Wednesday’s setback, the State government would persist the Regional Centre at some other location in the State like the Telangana Sports School in Hakimpet which has a sprawling area of around 200 acres under the Telangana government.
