: The Usha School of Athletics, founded by sporting legend P.T. Usha in 2002, has already brought to India several medals from major international meets. Just a few days ago, Tintu Luka and Jisna Mathew added to that impressive tally by claiming two medals at the Asian athletics championship at Wuhan, China.
Tintu and Jisna are not the only international athletes produced by the Usha school. There are also Jessy Mathew, Shaharbana Sidhique, C. Shilpa and Aswathi Mohan.
But, Usha’s girls have no synthetic track to practise on at their school at Kinalur. Work on the track is far from complete, though the then Union Sports Minister Ajay Maken had sanctioned Rs.5 crore for it.
“It was in early 2011 that the Minister visited the school and sanctioned the amount,” says Usha. “The original plan was the track would be ready for use by 2012. But it is nowhere near completion, in spite of my best efforts to convince government officials about the urgent need for the track.”
Cost escalation
Not surprisingly, it is the bureaucratic apathy that is slowing down the construction of the track. “If I had not been alert, an original tender would have got cancelled and that would have escalated the cost by Rs.2 crore,” she said. “If the work had gone as planned, the cost would have been Rs.5 crore. Owing to the delay, it has gone up to Rs.7.5 crore.”
Usha said a track at the school would make life a lot easier for her and the trainees. “Now we have to go to the Medical College in Kozhikode for training,” she says. “Till recently, we used to go to Mangaluru, as the track at Medical College came up only last August.”
Original plan was to complete the work by 2012
Trainees now practise at medical college ground
