Bangalore: The Karnataka State Hockey Association will conduct the inaugural T Shanmugam inter-school and V J D’Cruz inter-collegiate hockey tournaments from July 28 to August 11 at their stadium here.

As many as 12 teams will vie for top honours in the inter-collegiate event while 17 institutions have confirmed participation for the schools’ tourney.

The association is reviving the inter-collegiate after many years. Earlier, the Maj. Ponnappa tournament catered to the interests of Bangalore colleges before it was shelved owing to declining standards and participation.

“In between, some of the best talent, particularly from SAI hostels, were restricted to a couple of colleges and that upset the balance completely,” KSHA secretary K Krishnamurthy told TOI.

“Now we have some good players in SBM Jain, SJASC, SJCC and Al-Ameen college. We are sure we will see some good competition.”

The schools tournament is KSHA’s first attempt and has attracted entries from government schools in Bellary and Gulbarga and Lions school of Haveri. “This is a great sign. We hope more and more schools and colleges from other parts of the state take part in this tournament next year.”

With the KSHA stadium set to get a new turf soon, Krishnamurthy hoped things would be far more organised in 2009. “We aim to have a larger pool of participants. We have also planned to introduce prize money next year,” he said.