Here’s how Nagpur will become a Sports Hub

By Paritosh Pramanik
Feb 1, 2020
THE ambitious Divisional Sports Complex expansion plan worth Rs 123 crore, announced by Sports and Youth Services Minister Sunil Kedar, will have international standard swimming pool, shooting range, hockey astro turf, a multipurpose sports indoor hall, a practice athletics track to name 
a few.
Though it would be a huge ask for the State Sports Department to generate Rs 123 crore for expansion, the designs submitted by the architects fulfill the need to make Nagpur a Sports Hub, as claimed by Kedar.
‘The Hitavada’ has in its possession designs proposed for Development and Construction of Various Sports Activities for Divisional Sports Complex at Mankapur, prepared by the architects of Design Cell.
The proposal also includes renovation of the present indoor hall.
“The entire wooden flooring, which is almost a decade old, will be replaced with synthetic floor during the renovation work of the indoor hall,” said Deputy Directory of Sports and Youth Services, Nagpur Subhash Rewatkar.
Sports facilities like one hockey astro turf ground, a shooting range (50 metres range), four basketball courts, an international standard swimming and diving pool, two volleyball courts, indoor wrestling, boxing and gymnastics courts, two courts for kho-kho, six courts of kabaddi, a squash court with sports science centres, six tennis courts, a golf court, a softball ground, a well equipped gymnasium and an athletic track for practice has been proposed in the expansion plan.
As per the abstract of infrastructure development, the hockey astro turf stadium will need around Rs 11.46 crore. This also includes flood lights and spectators galleries.
The multisports indoor hall will be constructed with an estimated cost of Rs 10.80 crore while the international standard swimming and diving pool will be built at an estimated cost of Rs 8 crore.
The synthetic athletics track for practice, which will be adjacent to the main synthetic track, will be built with an estimated cost of Rs 3.38 crore.
There is also a proposal of hostel building which will cost around Rs 3 crore. The sports hostel was proposed long back and it was supposed to come up at the Krida Prabodhini.
The shooting range will have 24 bays and will be constructed on 4499.764 sq.m of land. The hockey ground will be built on 6388.200 sq.m and four cement basketball courts will be built on 840 sq.m area. As per the proposed plan, the six open synthetic tennis courts with spectators stands will be built on a total area of 6933.439 sq.m with a block estimated cost of Rs 3.63 crore.
In a recently held meeting Nagpur Guardian Minister Anil Deshmukh asked the sports ministry as to how it will generate 123 crore. “The Guardian Minister has asked Divisional Commissioner to submit source of funding,” said an official.
According to Rewatkar, they will be demanding funds from Central Government’s Khelo India (Vision India) scheme. “We can get Rs 50 crore from Centre. There is a proposal to increase the grants to talukas, districts and divisions. If that is increased as proposed then we can get additional Rs 10 crore,” said Rewatkar.
Though Kedar has insisted that he would like to see the expansion of sports complex completed in 2020, its looks bleak in practicality due to paucity of funds.
One can only hope this expansion plan does not take another decade just like the present indoor stadium took during the tenure of then CM Vilasrao Deshmukh. Current Guardian Minister Anil Deshmukh was then Sports Minister of the State.