No place to grow potatoes
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 17 2012 -

The Manipur Olympic Bhavan at Khuman Lampak Sports Complex :: Pix - Jinendra Maibam

Thanks to the negligence of the State Government and its related authorities, the one and only state-of-the-art Sports Complex in Manipur has been turned into private property for kitchen gardening and collection of fire-woods.

To people of other States who look up to Manipur as the powerhouse of sports in India, the report on the sports complex turning into a convenient plot where anybody could come for taking up kitchen gardening or collecting woods may sound strange.

But the sad part of the story is that it is very much a reality here with various individuals carrying out kitchen gardening and cutting down trees to collect woods at their own sweet accord with no one to say anything against their act.

Interestingly, all these activities are being carried out despite posting of an IRB battalion within the sports complex.

So, what has come even more shocking to us is the revelation made by one of the woman kitchen gardeners who was caught in the act when she claimed that her retired security personnel husband had got the permission from his higher officials for carrying our kitchen gardening inside the sports complex.

By the way, who are these higher officials who could grant permission for doing kitchen garden inside Khuman Lampak Sports complex?

Their names should be revealed so that other people who would like take up kitchen gardening inside Khuman Lampak Sports complex could contact as them as well!!

Sarcasm apart, if the Government of Manipur and its related authorities, more particularly, the Department of Sports and Youth Affairs, actually care for promotion of sports in Manipur, then they should wake up from their deep slumber and see what has become of the sports complex today.

As far as we remember, the present sorry state of affairs prevailing inside Khuman Lampak Sports Complex has come after the State Government gave its assurance of giving a facelift to the sports complex within two years in July this year.

At that time, it had also been reported that for the purpose of giving the required facelift, an amount of Rs 100 crores had been earmarked under the 13th Finance Commission Award, 2010-15.

But so far, we have not seen any improvement in the condition of the sports complex which houses many sporting facilities including the main stadium, indoor hall, swimming pool, velodrome, shooting range, boxing arena, rowing canal, hockey stadium and kangshang, not to speak of the National Sports Academy and the offices of Youth Affairs and Sports and the Manipur Olympic Association.

In fact, since its first inauguration in time for the 5th National Games in 1999, the sports complex is yet to experience any proper upkeep or upgradation in tune with the changing needs of the time.

No wonder, with the State Government looking the other way, Khuman Lampak Sports complex, where talented sportspersons are supposed to be groomed, has today turned into kitchen garden for growing potatoes.