PANJIM: The Peddem Sports Complex, the State Centre for Excellence in Mapusa will soon have a hockey stadium with super turf.
V M Prabhudesai, Director, Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs (DSYA) in an exclusive interview to Herald revealed about the sports activities being conducted in the State.
The announcement was made by the top brass in the backdrop of the preparations for the 36th National Games, which will be held in Goa in November 2016.
The Peddem Sports Complex currently has a Multipurpose Indoor Hall with a stage, three wooden badminton courts, besides facilities for table tennis, judo, gymnastics, taekwondo.
The 400 mts synthetic track, hockey playfield, indoor boxing training centre, indoor dojo for judo, shooting range, cricket turf-wickets with indoor practice wickets, sports sciences and research centre are additional facilities which are under process and are being developed on a top priority basis.
The DSYA’s endeavour to promote sports in schools and colleges began on a positive note this year. An Orientation Course for PE teachers will be held on April 17 and18 further adding to their sports promotional programmes.
The hockey discipline which is being neglected in the country is being given a huge push in Goa with the DSYA taking strong measures to boost India’s most popular sport at one point of time.
“We cannot expect to match the seating capacity as in Jharkhand which is the hub of hockey activities but the hockey stadium at Peddem Sports Complex, will surely be of a reasonable seating capacity,” mentioned Prabhudesai.
Commenting on the plan of action to boost sports in the State, the newly promoted director, who has been elevated on Thursday, threw light on the mode of operations.
“In order to boost sports, teachers should have good knowledge on sports. We recently conducted an orientation camp for PE teachers and regular teachers too. The camp was a huge success with 12 Talukas participating in the 10-day camp,” added Prabhudesai.
“The objective behind the exercise was to ensure that the teachers were made aware of the new rules of the various sports disciplines and finer aspects of the game.”
“We are also in the midst of introducing new sports disciplines in martial arts in schools,” informed Prabhudesai.
The Thang Ta, Jeet Kune Do, Kudo Japanese martial art and Tang Soo Do martial art are short listed to enter the school games calendar shortly.
The DSYA has been following-up with the schools and colleges to ensure their training is being imparted in the correct manner.
“We have officials visiting schools and colleges to check play ground conditions. A proper verification is done to check on the schools and colleges participation in various sports activities in the State.”
“The participation of teachers for the orientation camp is also noted at this point. The extra curricular activities of the schools and the sports awards bagged by the institutes are also looked into during the inspection by the DSYA official,” said Prabhudesai.
