City to have another hockey stadium

Chandigarh: Keeping the twin goals of hosting international matches and developing excellence in the game in mind, UT administration has decided to build another hockey stadium in the city. The new stadium will be built close to the existing one in Sector 42.

The stadium will be built on an area of 5.8 acres at an estimated cost of Rs 1.25 crore. Sources said it would be designed to fulfil international requirements so that major tournaments could be organized there.

UT director (sports) Inderjit Singh Sandhu stated that the administration had planned to lay two synthetic turfs, which would situated at a walking distance of the each of the stadiums.

He said the new stadium was planned, as they already had most of the required infrastructure in place.

“We had also appointed famous hockey stalwart Ric Charlesworth to look over preparing young hockey aspirants, but he had to leave India due to some problems in the Indian Hockey Federation,” said Sandhu.

With the Charlesworth experiment leading nowhere, Chandigarh administration wants to develop this worldclass hockey stadium on its own and realize the dream of holding the international hockey matches to inspire budding players, said Sandhu.

Sandhu revealed that UT sports department was busy planning and designing the upcoming stadium, which would be completed in a year’s time.