January 5, 2006	Thursday	Zilhaj 4, 1426

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HYDERABAD, Jan 4: While synthetic turf at the BISE’s Stadium has been laid and an exhibition match was organised between veterans of UAE and Pakistan on Dec 2, the issues regarding future expenditures over maintenance of ground, its administrative control and remaining development work are yet to be resolved.

The stadium belongs to the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education (BISE) which has been in possession of law enforcement agencies for quite a long time. Presently, different portions of it are in a dilapidated condition after the possession was restored to BISE.

The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) and Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) were laying Astroturf in different parts of the country. PSB executed the scheme through Sindh Sports Board (SSB).

An amount of around Rs34.260 million was initially estimated for the project, of which Rs20 million were to be spent on laying of imported Astroturf alone.

The major amount was spent on synthetic turf, prepartion hard surface, construction of C.C. drain, grill around the ground, underground water tank, pump house, piping work and cover sheeting.

The present seating capacity of the stadium is not more than 1000 and it is to be increased for which space is available but work has not begun yet. Fencing work has almost been completed.

When this correspondent tried to contact local sports and BISE officials to get answer of questions in respect of future recurring expenditures of ground, holding of matches and its administrative control but none of them was able to answer properly.

“The ground has not been handed over to us so far as the work is going on and we will discuss the remaining details with the chairman of the BISE,” said the Director SSB, Ghulam Akbar Shah Bukhari.

“The BISE is still unable to decide how to operate the ground in future, disbursement of salaries to staff, day-to-day expenditures, water supply, lighting arrangements,” said a sport official.

BISE’s director physical education Mubarak Ali Meo said that only chairman BISE could comment about the ground’s future maintenance and the expenditure to be incurred thereon.

It may be pointed out here that PHF has already announced preliminary round matches of 53rd National hockey championship from Jan 20 at the stadium.

Around eighteen clubs appeared in the scrutiny of the hockey clubs, conducted by PHF in last week of December at the stadium by a scrutiny committee.

Eight are registered hockey clubs which were affiliated with District Hockey Association (DHA).

DHA president Aslam Khan Niazi said that ground had not yet been handed over to the board by the contractor as some work was yet to be completed and added that after handing over of the ground remaining issues about holding of hockey matches would be discussed.