Ludhiana: Following the demands of local athletes to resume practice sessions at Guru Nanak Dev Stadium, local sports department officials have sped up the maintenance work of the stadium by pitching in the maximum number of cleanliness staff officials to complete it in the next few days.
Sports department officials are of the view that to resume the practice session inside the stadium premises before July 16, local coaches can make local athletes ready for upcoming tournaments by starting early morning training sessions as the Athletic Federation of India announced the tentative dates for the grand prix athletic meet, which will be started in September following a conducive atmosphere.
Although the local sports department has resumed the service of only two local coaching centres in the district following the present condition with regard to the rise in number of Covid-19 cases. Among them, one is an athletic coaching centre, which is being made functional at the athletic track of Government College for Boys here.
Earlier, the district administration had utilised Guru Nanak Dev Stadium for managing the work of medical screening and verification of more than 3.5 lakh migrant workers. Due to its excessive usage in the past one month by the administration for ferrying local migrants labourers to their native places, its condition reached its worst phase as its bathrooms had been used by several lakh migrants.
The poor condition of the bathrooms and overuse of the stadium has raised health concerns among the sports community, which wanted to start the athletic activities in the stadium after a long period of time.
District sports officer Ravinder Singh said that, “The sports department is making the best effort to complete the maintenance work of the stadium as early as possible because we know the importance of practice on synthetic tracks by trainees for improving their skills. Within the next week, the maintenance work will be complete as maximum staff had been put on the cleanliness work for early resumption of practice sessions there.”