IMPHAL, April 30: Dearth of encouragement and compromises in motivational efforts by authority have bogged down the spirits of many young and promising future sports star of Manipur, particularly the students of National Sport Academy located at Khuman Lampak Imphal.
Due to allegedly awful operational conditions of NSA Imphal, as many as 201 students of NSA (156 boys and 45 girls) left the academy hostels (Khuman Lampak) on Friday morning to respective homes, without
even having their lunch.
“We are treated like livestock in the hostel, with no facilities for safe drinking and bathing water, awful electric system and stinking washrooms.
Beside this, the concerned authorities have been providing inferior quality equipment, ill-fitting tracksuits and more, even though the academy keep exhorting that we are train to become world-class sportpersons”, a boxing students told pressmen on Saturday in the hope their grievances would be heard by the authorities.
Only four boys and 30 girls are now said to be in the hostel after the Friday exodus of NSA`s student from the hotel, in which this residential English medium co-education public schools offers education from VI to XII class.
Another student complained of sub-standard tracksuits and shoes provided to them since the past two years. The quality and quantity of diet has also not increased or improved despite the sportspersons have grown physically in the span of the years between class VI and XII.
According to the students, no arm-guard or foot-protector have been provided since the past two years for taekwondo events and many students get injured because of this. And when any of them gets injured or fall ill, there is no one to care for them and they have to wait for their parents to come and move them home or to a hospital.
There are no medical facilities, not even a first-aid box in the academy and the hostels, they complained. The NSA Imphal currently focuses on training and nurturing students for six main event viz. taekwondo, judo, boxing, archery, racing and weightlifting.
However, the basic requirements in terms of equipment, infrastructure or board and lodging have been badly compromised. The students have to manage with inferior and outdated equipment, they said.
“There has been instances when we were permitted to take part in National level games, but using condemnably low-quality tracksuit and equipment”, one taekwondo student stated.
The student also warned of not returning to the hostel until the concern authorities fix these big problems and asked all the parents of NSA`s student to come at 11am at Khuman Lampak Sport Stadium near the
academy to hold a meeting on the issue.
Mention may be made here that the National Sports Academy (Manipur), was established on July 24, 2007 under special package of Prime Minister of India, (under DoNER ministry package) as a residential English medium co-educational Public School instituted with the objective of producing sportspersons of National and International standard of excellence in sports and the Academy imparts sports training along with general education.
According to information available, the administration of the National Sports Academy is vested in a Society by the name of the National Sports Academy Management Society which is a registered society under the Manipur State Societies Registration Act, 1989.
The day-to-day functioning of the academy is looked after by a Management Committee with Commissioner (YAS), Government of Manipur as its Chairman. The Management Committee meets at regular intervals to review the progress of the Academy and to devise measures for its improvement.