Technical team visited Rourkela to evaluate infrastructure for Hockey World Cup
Rajesh Mohapatra,Odishabarta
ROURKELA: Rourkela will be the hockey venue with Bhubaneswar which has been declared by Naveen Patnaik, welcomed by every Rurkelaites and today a Hockey Technical team has visited Rourkela to evaluate the infrastructure available and work progress for 2023 world cup. Previously Odisha has been in International map for successfully organizing World cup Hockey in 2018 and now in 2023 Odisha is organizing the same which is a proud moment for the people of Odisha.
One Technical team under the leadership of Dr. Narendra Batra, Chairman Hockey Federation of India with another five members, joined by Tusharkani Behera,MD, IDCO, Sports Minister, Govt. of Odisha, Chief Secretary, Asit Tripathy Nikhil Pavan Kalyan, Collector, Sundergarh and Sarda Nayak, MLA, Rourkela and other senior Hokey players. This morning all the delegates visited Biju Patnaik Hockey Stadium at Sector-5 with five members of Hockey India and supervised the entire infrastructure and the entire work progress for this unique event to be organized in January, 2023.
All the matches will be held in two cities of Odisha, Bhubaneswar and Rourkela. When asked by the media how many matches will be played in Rourkela, Sports Minister said the decision will be taken at appropriate time and the present capacity of this stadium is 12000 and all efforts are putting in to make the strength to 20000. Anyways they feel satisfied with the progress work going on in Rourkela. He also said that construction of another stadium is going on near Bisra Chawk and if everything goes right then decision may also be taken to develop for an international match. For this purpose all necessary communication and other infrastructures work will be done in tandem with activities correlating to this international venue. Decision to make Rourkela as another venue is taken by the Honble’ Chief Minister being a tribute to Sundergarh for its contribution in creating hockey players over these years that represents our country in international events. This development has made people of Rourkela very happy and everybody is eagerly waiting for this huge event to happen.
