PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, July 19: Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik inaugurated the new state-of-the-art building of the Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre (HPC) at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday.
The new building is equipped with a gym, smart classrooms, dining facility, physiotherapy room, office space and more.
Tusharkanti Behera, Minister, Electronics & Information Technology, Sports & Youth Services, Government of Odisha, Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, Debashis Jena, Chief Resident Executive of Tata Steel in Bhubaneswar and the Secretary General of Hockey India, Bholanath Singh were also present among others.
Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel said, “Tata Steel is proud to be associated with the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre. We are grateful to the Government of Odisha for their support and guidance in establishing this centre as one of the leading High Performance Centres in the country. We are very happy to share that the centre has already started yielding good results. Senior International Women’s team player, Jyoti Chattri, and five players who have recently made their junior International debut are proud cadets of this HPC.”
The new building at the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre is currently home to 90 cadets, consisting of an equal number of boys and girls, who were selected from state and national talent pools.
These young athletes are provided with top-notch facilities and training to help them excel at the international level. The Odisha government has provided the infrastructure for the centre.
In addition to its role as a high-performance training centre, the High Performance Centre also oversees the grassroots hockey programme in nine districts of Odisha, with 25 operational grassroots centres, including 20 centres run by the state government.