After creating much hype in the media five years back, the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) have completely backed out from the Sindh Snooker Academy project that was to be built on a piece of land allotted to them by then city government at the Kashmir Road-Shaheed-i-Millat Road intersection.

After hectic efforts, the city government agreed to allot 2210 square yards plot on 30-year lease to the PBSF for constructing an academy. In this connection.a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was also signed between the KMC administrator Mohammad Hussain Syed and the then PBSF president Alamgir Shaikh on Sept 15, 2012.

Prominent among others who had attended the press briefing-cum-signing ceremony at the time were then Commissioner Karachi Shoaib Siddiqui, Ahmed Chinnoy, M. Rehan Khan, Ali Rahim and Munawwar Hussain Shaikh.

After taking possession, the game’s controlling body erected a boundary wall around the land besides a gate and locked it. An architect prepared the proposed master plan for the academy.

When Mohammad Asif scaled new heights by crowning world amateur snooker champion at Sofia, Bulgaria, on Dec 2, 2012, it appeared that things will be more smooth for the PBSF to get the project off the ground. But that did not happen.

In 2015, the PBSF also approached business tycoon Malik Riaz Hussain for constructing the academy but to no avail.

It has been almost a year now that the city government’s anti encroachment department has dismantled the lock and taken back the possession of the land allotted.

In the absence of an academy in the city, the PBSF had to hire other premises on hefty amounts to organise ranking competitions with the exception of the NBP ranking event which took place at the NBP Sports Complex.

The province of Sindh, Karachi in particular, once used to boast a hectic calendar in the baize game and produced several talented cueists. However, it now clearly lags far behind Punjab today and most of its cueists come from snooker parlours who have no professional venue to hone their skills.

Unfortunately, Karachi Club that was synonymous with the sport besides serving as hub of the game for decades is not lending the same support that it used to do at least for the last six years.

People in the field confirmed that the KC had staged the last ranking event as far back as 2011. “There’s a status co but we’ve not surrendered documents of the academy land to the city government,” the PBSF President Munawwar Hussain Shaikh told Dawn when his comments were sought on the issue on Thursday.

According to him, it was just an MoU and there were many loopholes in it. “We’ll try to meet the top people in the IPC and the PSB in Islamabad soon to expedite the issue,” the PBSF chief added.

The PBSF had shifted their focus to the PSB Coaching Centre after they were assured to get some space by the IPC Minister Riaz Hussain Pirzada and now suspended DG PSB, Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera sometime back.

But with the IPC Minister having resigned from his post and the latter still suspended, the fate of the Sindh Snooker Academy hangs in the balance.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2017