Sports City: A pipe dream

Sports City: A pipe dream
MANUJA VEERAPPA
BENGALURU


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A sports city near namma Bengaluru! Wow! Well, that was the instant reaction of most sport lovers, when the announcement was made on Friday. But once the news sunk in, the question that crops up is is this for real? This is not to be pessimistic but it pays to be cautious.

In the past, sportspersons have been taken on a ride with new governments making tall promises but failing to fulfill them. When the previous government came to power, one of the first promises made by the then sports minister, Alkod Hanumanthappa, was the allocation of long-pending sites to deserving sportspersons.

Two years on, no one knows what has happened to the sites. This is just one instance.

While the minister of Youth Services and Sports Gulhatti Shekar lost no time in announcing the mega project, he seems to have given little thought to the basic sports infrastructure the city is crying for.

The last time Bengaluru hosted a multi sports event was the 1997 National Games and that was the last the city saw some sports infrastructure development too.

Almost 11 years later, the structures that came up then lie in a depleted and neglected condition.

The synthetic track at the Sree Kanteerava stadium, the turf at the hockey stadium, the under-utilisation of the Kanteerava and Koramangala indoor stadiums are testimony to false hopes given by politicians and bureaucratic bungling.

On Saturday, the minister said that a tender has been called to relay the track and the turf, but we have been hearing the same for the last three years.

Although the ‘inaugural edition’ of the biennial National Youth Games was to be held in 2003, it has taken five years for the plans to fructify. With the event having been initially scheduled five years ago, the budget has risen from Rs 8.5 crore to Rs 35 crore now. But there has been no progress with regard to infrastructure in the intervening period.

Though the 12th Finance Commission granted Rs 100 crore for the development of youth services and sports in the state over a period of four years, there has been very little development.

The bottom line is, dreaming and planning is one thing.

Executing it is a wholly different and difficult proposition.