100 mini stadiums to come up in Odisha by June ‘16

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, Jan 14:

Odisha Government plans to construct 200 new urban mini stadiums in the state. Out of the 200, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik today asked the government officials to ensure that the construction of 100 mini stadiums gets completed by June 2016.

Patnaik said so while reviewing the performance of Sports and Youth Services Department at the state Secretariat today.

“The mini stadium scheme started back in 2013-14. A decision had been taken to complete the construction of 49 mini stadiums by 2013-14. The projects were, however delayed due to lack of funding. So far, four mini stadiums have been completed and work on another 34 is almost complete. Work on another 11 mini stadiums is yet to begin. In 2015-16, we had sanctioned construction of 94 mini stadiums and work has started on 26 of them,” said Sports and Youth Services Minister Sudam Marandi.

It may be noted that Odisha Government had started the scheme to promote sports and facilitate work to local labourers under various schemes in 2013-14. It had planned to spend Rs 25 lakh for construction of a mini stadium. While the Sports and Youth Services Department was supposed to contribute Rs 10 lakh, the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) funds, MLALAD and MPLAD were supposed to contribute Rs 5 lakh each.

However, given the uncertainty in getting NREGS funds, the funding pattern for the scheme has been redrawn. As per the new mode of allocation, while the Sports and Youth Services Department pays Rs 20 lakh, the local MPs and MLAs would fund the remaining Rs 5 lakh through their MLALAD and MPLAD funds.