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Notices to Balewadi academies withdrawn

Minister of Sports Padmakar Valvi condemns move, promises to renew the contracts of all the four academies

Avinash Rajput

Posted On Sunday, February 03, 2013 at 08:46:36 AM

Sachin Phulsunder

(L To R) Sunder Iyer, State Minister of Sports Padmakar Valvi, Nikhil Kanetkar (in yellow), Pawan Singh and Bhushan Thakur after the meeting on Saturday

A day after Mirror reported about the shocking primary notices that four sports academies received asking them to vacate the premises of the Balewadi Sports Complex, State Minister of Sports Padmakar Valvi strongly condemned the action. In a meeting that took place at the Balewadi hostel he said the notices have been withdrawn with immediate effect.

The notices were served to four academies at Sports Complex, Balewadi officiated by Pawan Singh (shooting), Sunder Iyer (tennis), Nikhil Kanetkar (badminton) and Bhushan Thakur (table tennis). After a closer look at the primary notices, Valvi admitted that it was illegal of the commissioner to send such notices and he was unaware of this activity.

“There were no orders issued from the ministry to the director or deputy director to send any of these primary notices to the four academies operating at Balewadi. We are withdrawing the notice with immediate effect and there will be an inquiry on the issuing authority. I have already asked the secretary of sports to issue fresh orders within the next three days and draft fresh five years’ agreements with the academies,” Valvi fumed.

The minister announced that all the contracts would be renewed. “I assure that everything will be sanctioned by me on paper within fifteen days. We will try and get all the agreements here at Balewadi so the academies also get a platform to discuss their plans for the coming years. There won’t be any hike in the monthly rent for five years so that we make the facilities available for the academy and their students at minimum cost.”

Elaborating on the plans he has, he added, “We will form a committee of which even I will be a part. This committee will plan and decide on how many days a year we can give the sports facilities on rent for non-sports functions.

I can assure that no sports activity will be affected because of these functions. We will continue to rent out some venues as revenue generated helps us meet maintenance costs of the Sports Complex to some extent.”

Elated by the minister’s decision to renew the contract and put everything on record within two weeks, Olympian Nikhil Kanetkar said, “It is a sigh of relief indeed. It was a fruitful meeting and we all are satisfied with the outcome.

Once the MOU is signed we can shift our focus to bigger things like developing the sport, getting one of the best coaches in the world and also getting sponsors.”

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Notices to Balewadi academies withdrawn

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