NAGPUR: Nearly five years after it was first proposed, Nagpur University’s ambitious plan for its own indoor sports stadium is going to become a reality soon. NU officials plan to perform the bhoomipuja in June last week and start work as early as possible.
The multipurpose complex, which will be funded by the
Union Ministry of Sports and Youth Affairs, would be coming up at the University Campus on Amravati Road, instead of its old location adjacent to Subhedar Hall.
“Though the union ministry had allocated Rs6 crore for the project in 2013-14, it couldn’t materialize due to some or the other problems. Now, all hurdles have been cleared and we would soon start work,” registrar Puran Meshram told TOI, adding that it wouldn’t be big like Mankapur stadium, but would still accommodate 2,000 spectators.
He pointed out that the government had released Rs1.80 crore in March 2016, which was still lying with NU. “Recently, we’ve transferred the funds to Public Works Department (PWD) for preparing design and calculating the cost of the project. The expenditure is expected to touch Rs10 crore due to inflation and GST, over the years. NU would contribute remaining funds for the project,” he said.
The registrar said even the bhoomipuja of the synthetic track, which is coming up at the ground in front of Subhedar Hall, would be performed at the same time in June. Both projects received a boost after vice chancellor SP Kane convened a meeting in this regard in April last year, which was attended by former physical education director Dhananjay Welukar and acting director Kalpana Jadhav, apart from Meshram.
“Earlier, the stadium was planned on the land adjacent to Subhedar Hall, But the area has a lot of trees, so we decided to shift the venue to the campus, where ample open space was available for it,” Jadhav said, adding that initially construction is planned for two floors.
NU engineer Dattatray Harde said the new multipurpose stadium would offer state-of-art facilities, and make it the second such facility in the university after Subhedar Hall. “Of course, it would be much bigger in size, and would give fillip to sporting activities in NU. The complex would come up near Pharmacy Department, which would offer frontage of Amravati Road. If a separate gate is given to it, it would have direct entry from the front, which would be convenient to those coming regularly,” he told TOI.
