CUTTACK 18-Oct-2012 152
An eight-member committee, constituted by the State Sports and Youth Services Department, today unanimously recommended 11 disciplines as prioritised sports for the government to request corporate houses to adopt or sponsor on sport each.
The committee, which met at Barabati Stadium in Cuttack, under the chairmanship of Odisha Olympic Association and Odisha Cricket Association secretary Asirbad Behera, selected hockey (both men and women), football (both men and women), athletics, rowing, weightlifting, archery, basketball, table tennis and karate as the 11 prioritised sports disciplines.
Sports Department Under Secretary Ananta Kishore Jena was the convener of the meeting in which Odisha Association for Rowing and Sculling secretary Binod Dash, Odisha Weightlifting Association secretary Narayan Sahu, Hockey Odisha secretary Pratap Satpathy, international woman hurdler Anuradha Biswal and former India woman football captain Sradhanjali Samantaray took part as members.
Hockey Olympian Lazarus Barla, also a member of the committee, could not attend the meeting due to illness of his wife. Since chess has already been adopted by Odisha Mining Corporation earlier, the committee did not deliberate for its further adoption, convener Jena said in a statement.
The eight-member committee was earlier formed by the State Sports and Youth Services Department to examine and recommend 10 to 11 prioritized sports disciplines in order to request corporate sector of the state to adopt/sponsor one sport each.
