2022 goals to make a permanent sports ground (possibly a mini stadium)

Today we went back to the field again at my native - for a greater cause to work towards building a permanent sports ground (possibly a mini stadium) in 2022 and work on how we can make sports interesting for young people by providing them better infrastructure and opportunities. We have been trying to build a permanent sports ground for the entire village for long time because we feel, every place should have a sports ground where the young generation can engage with sports. Being a active football / cricket player for long time, we have so much of attachment to the field. If you are a sports person, then you will definitely have that feeling where you practice. But unfortunately, one or other cause has risked our goal, this time the National Highway.

This entire area was a big government land and we have been playing on this field for more than a decade. To prevent encroachment, trees were planted a few years back to make the ambience fresh with lots of greens in the surrounding. Some people started to use this for learning driving, and some of our players themselves took on their hand to dig trench in the surrounding to protect it. It was a lot of work, but it definitely helped.

Few months back, a road was planned by NHAI (National Highway Authority of India), that takes a major chunk of this field. The NHAI officials even came and measured and put their identification walls. Ideally, the government should have taken into consideration of the fact that, this is the only playground of such a big village having more than 50000 population. When we inquired about how the road was planned without consulting us, we came to know, there were some people invited for discussion, giving their consent - they were never associated with sports. So we decided to give a fresh representation to the district administration - we consulted a lawyer and drafted a letter collecting signatures from all sports enthusiasts. We even thought of filling a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) in parallel so that, we will not be compelled to take law on our own hands to fight with NHAI. Last week when we had our veteran cricket match ( I did a post), we did discuss this with the local MLA as he was present with us. He committed to help us to make this ground better. The meet today was planned to set this as our 2022 goal and work fast to achieve as soon as possible.

The day was lot of fun again with same kind of food and match - this time it was chicken. In the afternoon, we were fortunate to have the MLA again with us - he belongs to the same place and personally attached to many of us. Seeing our commitment and affinity for the field, he is now motivated to take this to next level and provide all sought of help - from financial to administration. He gave his opinion about how we can safely shift the ground without fighting with NHAI and now we have a concrete plan. One of our sports enthusiast presented this sketch ( he is the one taking the lead to maintain this field) to him and he realizes what it takes to build this by someone who is not even qualified to prepare such design. Only a person having his heart close to sports can do this.

So the plan we have now set in place is to first identify the area, that we will need to shift for a permanent ground, leaving half of this to NHAI. We will cut the trees and shift our field towards the east - this entire area is a big one AND we feel it will suffice, but to confirm, tomorrow we will go again and measure and come up with feasibility report. The MLA also promised to talk to NHAI officials to come and confirm again about their area in next three days. So by next week, we should have everything ready and then, we will plan and work ourselves, to cut and clean the area, and shift the field. Looking forward to few decades, we also discussed to have some reserved area, for expansion. We will plant trees again in the rest of areas. We have a very competent engineer, who has agreed to provide all sort of planning and measurement work.

Coming to the finance part, we also decided to register our community - we have one of our member now working for Odisha Cricket Association (OCA) - he promised to provide some government grants the day it's registered. The MLA promised to provide all sorts of financial help to develop this ground - he is now the Chairman of Planning board.

Though it may take lot of time to have this converted to a mini stadium, hopefully in next few days, we should be able to shift and have a permanent sports ground - that will serve many generations. We know, the playground where we started playing is now a thing of the past. If we do not work towards our future today, then it will become our past again in few decades and our kids will not be able to play and enjoy like us. There are challenges, but we see its doable - together we can make it a success. It involves a lot of blood, sweat, and tears but this will be the last time and the achievement will be memorable.

Once we start using the new ground, a veteran cricket tournament is planned - to celebrate. Right now the plan is to make this happen in Jan 26th - the Republic day.

I took my son today with me to the match - to inspire him see us play and have all sort of fun. And he enjoyed the nice food as well.

My wife also got a taste of our food today - I brought it to home.

Everyone is now saying to have one match each month 😀