Manasi Agarwal

Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid foundation of a sports university of Uttar Pradesh yesterday. The university is named after legendary Olympian hockey wizard Major Dhyan Chand and is the first in the state. The proposed world-class university will be built in Salawa village of Sardhana municipality of Meerut district in western Uttar Pradesh. Meerut is a major hub of sports manufacturing goods. The Prime Minister hailed the historic significance of Meerut, saying the city been the birthplace of great child of the country, Major Dhyan Chand ji. “A few months back, the central government had named the country’s biggest sports award after Dadda. Sports University of Meerut is being dedicated to Major Dhyan Chand ji today,” he added. “Meerut is a center of our strength and culture. It is the land of Jain Tirthankaras and has shown us the strength of India ever since the time of the Indus valley civilisation” said the Prime Minister “His [Major Dhyan Chand’s] name has ‘dhyan’, which means focus, without which no one can gain success. The youth here will do well.” “This modern university would be one of the best of its types in the entire world,” Modi said. “Along with sporting facilities, it would also help in nurturing the careers of over 1,000 youth and turn them into successful sportspersons.”

The university has been planned with all the modern, state-of-the-art sports infrastructure – including a synthetic hockey ground, football ground, separate grounds for basketball, volleyball, handball, and kabaddi. It also includes a lawn tennis court, gymnasium hall, a synthetic running stadium, swimming pool, a multipurpose hall, and a cycling velodrome. According to the government release, the university will also shooting ranges (60, 90 and 125 metres), squash, gymnastics, weightlifting, archery, canoeing, and kayaking, among other facilities. The university will also have an admistrative block, teaching block. Central library, shopping complex, police out-post, guest house, multipurpose hall and facility centre An official release by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has noted that the sports university is being established at an estimated cost of ₹700 crore at the Salawa and Kaili villages of the Sardhana town in Meerut. The sports university will be built on 91.38 acres of land. It will have the capacity of training 1,080 sportspersons, including 540 women and 540 men.

Earlier in the day, PM Modi offered prayers at the Augurnath temple. He also paid floral tribute at Shahid Smarak. He was joined by Uttar Pradesh’s Governor Anandiben Patel and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath. Uttar Pradesh is slated to go to the Assembly polls early this year. In the 2017 Assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) bagged 312 seats out of the 403-seat Uttar Pradesh Assembly while Samajwadi Party (SP) bagged 47 seats, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) won 19 and Congress could manage to win only seven seats.