Rourkela could not have asked for more. It has joined a select list of cities that can boast of World Class sports infrastructure. A majestic Birsa Munda Stadium, acclaimed to be the world’s largest hockey arena, has been the latest addition to its existing sports complexes.

Better known as Steel Township, the new Hockey Stadium has been completed in a record period of 15 months. It has 20,486 seats. Work on this complex started only in August, 2021, and it was formally inaugurated on January 5 by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

Among some of its salient features, include an exclusive room for goalkeepers, four dressing or change rooms for players, room for ball boys besides separate lounges for Umpires and Technical officials, a medical room, a Dope centre and a warm up zone. Change rooms have showers and  facilities for massage  and relaxation of players.

The Stadium is fitted with a modern water sprinkling system that has an inbuilt Reverse Osmosis equipment to facilitate recycling of water.The stadium is also friendly for people with disabilities as stands have been provided with ramps.

Attached to this new stadium is a practice pitch and hockey village with 250 with well-furnished rooms, separate dining rooms for players and officials and a cafeteria. It is for the first time that Hockey Village has been constructed on the campus of the new Hockey Complex.

This Stadium is in addition to the existing Biju Patnaik Hockey Stadium that is under the administrative control of the Rourkela Steel Township. THe Steel Authority of India (SAIL) uses Bijju Stadium for running its Hockey Academy that has 42 promising players as its trainees. Bijju Stadium also got a new synthetic surface.

Other than sports infrastructure, Rourkela has got a facelift. All the roads have been carpeted afresh. Footpaths have been constructed. All walls have been painted with pictures of some known hockey players. Since Rourkela is flora and fauna rich, some walls have been p[ainted with murals of wildlife. Though the flex boards carrying lifesize portraits of Chief Minister Naveen Patnail adorn all major roads of the city, most of the buildings in the periphery of Birsa Munda Stadium are illuminated at night.

“Lot of development has taken place in the last six months,” says Salwinder Singh, who works as Assistant Forest Officer in the Forest Department, maintaining that the city has been cleared of all its garbage points.”We sincerely hope that this cleanliness and beauty of the city is even after the big event is over.”

Residents of Rourkela are generally in praise of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. They appreciate his people’s friendly and helpful attitude. “We do not know whether he will drive any political mileage by giving the State a facelift on the pretext of holding the second successive World Cup or not but he has done a wonderful job,” says Feroze Ansari,an Uber driver. Feroze Ansari also happens to be a professional playback singer.

 *Journalists covering the world cup also held a condolence meeting on the opening day to pay rich tributes to famous hockey statistician BG Joshi who died some months ago suspectly of Covid.

* When the World Cup Trophy was taken on a tour of the country, on reaching Rourkela, it was also taken to one of three main gurdwaras of the Steel Township. Located in civil township and named after fifth Sikh Guru, Sri Guru Arjun Dev, Sikh sangat accorded a warm welcome to the trophy. On Sunday, some eminent hockey players, including Olympians and internationals, were also felicitated at the gurdwara.

Prabhjot Singh

The post FIH Odisha Hockey Men’s World Cup 2023: My Rourkela Diary appeared first on The Canadian Parvasi.