Aroop Biswas hits out at Centre over delay in

State Sports and Youth Affairs minister Aroop Biswas hit out at the Centre for its indifference in developing facilities for seven sports disciplines at Biswa Bangla Krirangan, in Jalpaiguri. The minister also announced that the state is developing a hockey stadium at a cost of Rs 20 crore at Salt Lake, which is expected to be inaugurated in December.

The minister said at the state Assembly that he had written to the Centre on several occasions, but having elicited no response, he has demanded in his last recent communication to Union Sports minister Anurag Thakur that if the Centre does not want to do the needful, then it should wash its hands off and leave it upon the state to develop sporting facilities at the site.

“The state government had spend Rs 60 crore for creating Biswa Bangla Krirangan Sports Complex on 27.06 acres land in Jalpaiguri. The complex was handed over to the Sports Authority of India (SAI) through an MoU in December 2016, with the latter promising to develop the facility as a centre of excellence in sports for Bengal and other northeastern states. SAI had promised to develop facilities for archery, athletics, football, table tennis, hockey, badmintion and swimming. However, most of these sports have not seen the light of the day and it has come to my knowledge that the complex has become a grazing ground for the cows,” Biswas said on Wednesday.

BJP MLA Ashok Dinda claimed that the Centre had announced allocation of Rs 200 crore for various states to develop sports complexes and alleged that the state has not made any communication with the Centre and hence it has not received funds that some other states have received.