The Bangladesh Olympic Association carried out some renovation works with their own funds due to little interest shown by the National Sports Council ahead of
the upcoming 8th edition of the Bangladesh Games.
The Bangladesh Games will have 31 disciplines, slated to take place in 28 different venues, but the current state of some venues are not up to the mark.
After the South Asian Games in 2010, the NSC did not maintain the venues properly with the relevant federations also showing a lack of interest in tidying up the venues. Due to this indifferent attitude, infrastructures of some of the sports federations were damaged badly.
As a result, the BOA was forced to take some initiatives to repair a number of venues like the Basketball stadium, Paltan Wooden Floor Gymnasium, Volleyball stadium, Kabadi stadium, Handball stadium and the National Swimming Complex at Mirpur.
`We requested the NSC to renovate the venues but they declined citing a lack of funds as the major reason and that is the reason why we are partly refurbishing some of the damaged parts,’ acting secretary general of the BOA, Ashikur Rahman Miku, said.
Miku also informed that it would cost around Tk 5 to 7 lakh for the overall renovation works.
Meanwhile, the state minister for youth and sports, Ahad Ali Sarkar, also the co-chairman of the Bangladesh Games organising committee, handed over a cheque for Tk 5 crore to the BOA which was earlier allocated by the government.
The BOA officials also informed that they have received only Tk 10.5 crore from the government and the sponsors and also expressed their hope that the other sponsors, who gave their word previously, will provide the sponsorship money as soon as possible.
In a new move, the BOA will now receive any sort of funds for the purpose of organising the Games directly from the ministry of youth and sports instead of the NSC, which was acting as a third-party between the two previously.
The organising committee also decided to give tracksuits and t-shirts to both the participating athletes and officials during the Games.
-With New Age input
