Parliamentary Committee praises Odisha CM’s efforts in transforming national hockey teams

Bhubaneswar: The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Sports and Youth Affairs in a Press Release today appreciated the efforts of Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik in transforming the performance of national men’s and women’s hockey teams.

“The Committee in its collective wisdom has appreciated the initiative and efforts taken by Naveen Patnaik in setting up the high performance sports centres and sponsoring both men’s and women’s hockey teams through Hockey India since 2018, which has translated into better performances by both these teams at Tokyo Olympics 2020,” the release said.

“Sponsorship in the field of sports has the potential of providing much needed support for infrastructure development and better performance by the sportspersons. In its 311th report on ‘Khelo India Scheme’, this committee had recommended that the Public Private Partnership mode for creating sports infrastructure in the country be adopted and focused strategies to rope in public-private sector are needed, as has been done in the State of Odisha, where the State Government and corporate sector have come together to fund ten high performance centres like hockey, badminton and shooting etc.,” it said.

“The committee, therefore, further recommends that with a view to continue this momentum in sports performance, apart from getting corporate sponsorship, every State should be encouraged to focus on one sport specific to that region besides taking up other sports in general and create and develop High Performance Sports Centres on the line of Odisha model,” the release added.