TEAM HERALD
MARGAO: It’s a fortnight since curtains had come down on the first edition of the Indian Super League (ISL), but the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) have been caught napping in dismantling a platform raised over the jogging track outside the Nehru stadium at Fatorda.
The SAG has also been found wanting in preventing stray dogs invading the jogging track and unscrupulous elements using the sports ground to consume liquor after sunset.
The sorry state of affairs was brought to the notice of Sports Minister Ramesh Tawadkar during his visit to the SAG complex on Friday evening in connection with the prize distribution function of the 60th National School games.
A regular visitor to the complex Mohandas Lolienkar told the minister that the sports officials have not yet removed the platform erected on the jogging track to facilitate entry of vehicles into the sports complex for the ISL matches. ‘Joggers, especially the elderly, find it difficult to climb the platform while jogging and also affects their rhythm,” Lolienkar told the Sports Minister.
Tawadkar immediately questioned the stadium manager Gurudas Vernekar over the state of affairs and issued directions to get the platform and the debris cleared immediately.
The sports minister expressed his shock after he was briefed that people enter open sports complex with liquor for want of security guards. The stadium manager, however, told the minister that his office had in the past written to the district and police authorities to crack a whip, but in vain.
Tawadkar, however, assured Lolienkar and others that he would ensure that things would fall in place at the sports complex at the earliest. “We would work out a mechanism to keep the stray dogs at bay,” he assured, while promising to take a look at the jogging track craving for government attention for quite some time.
