Mangaluru, April 28: District in-charge minister B Ramanath Rai inaugurated the doping test centre at Mangala Stadium here on Tuesday April 28th. The national-level 19th Federation Cup Senior Athletics Championship, is scheduled to commence from April 30th at Mangala Stadium.
Addressing the media, minister Rai said, karnatka Chief Minister has announced that he will release Rs 1 crore for the event. We have already received Rs 50 lakhs and the pending amount will be released later. Rs 5 lakhs has been granted by Mangaluru City Corporation, and the department of environment and ecology has assured of granting Rs 10 lakhs to the sports department.
Addressing the gathering, minister for youth services and sports Abhaychandra Jain said, in Mangala Stadium we have given more preference to the synthetic track. Toilets are repaired, and a borewell is dug for water supply. Thirty four athletes from Karnataka will participate in the four days event. The exhibition ground is all set for the athletes to train.
On the inaugural day, cultural programmes will be held for two hours, during which various cultural teams from our state will participate. To attract the athletes and the crowd, cultural programmes will be organised in a unique manner, said Jain.
This event is important as national athletes will get a chance to qualify for the 21st Asian Athletics Championships-2015 to be held in June at Wuhan, China, Beijing and for the Rio Olympics, he said.
Manjunath Bhandary, President of Dakshina Kannada District Athletics Association informed that nearly 30 athletes from North India have already arrived to Mangaluru and that the Association has arranged accommodation for them. We are expecting more athletes tomorrow, he said.
H S Venkatesh, Director for youth empowerment and sports department, Bengaluru, revealed that 48 sports equipment have been purchased at a cost of Rs 65 lakhs.
DC A B Ibrahim said, ninety percent of the work are over. If it rains, the games will be stopped for a few minutes, but everything is under control. There will be no entry fee and the public are allowed to watch sports, he said.
SCDCC Bank Chairman Dr M N Rajendra Kumar donated Rs 5 lakhs to this event. He handrd over a cheque to minister Abhaychandra Jain, on this occasion
MLC Ivan D’Souza, former mayor Shashidhar Hegde and others were also present.
