Andhra Pradesh to bid for 2017 National Games

Hyderabad: Whatever may be the equations with regard to N Chandrababu Naidu as a politician, the image of ‘happening’ Chief Minister remains of a very high order among sportspersons, thanks to his suave handling of the 2002 National Games, which was hosted by Hyderabad.

Everyone remembers him and hails him as the man who gave multipurpose and ultra-modern stadiums in Hyderabad.

He is all set to go for an encore, albeit this time as the Chief Minister of the residuary State.

If things go according to his script the 2017 edition of the National Games could be hosted in Andhra Pradesh.

Towards this and also to take stock of the ground realities vis-à-vis infrastructural facilities in the districts, State Sports Minister Kinjarapu Atchannaidu addressed a full-fledged meeting here on Thursday.

He urged the officials to ensure that Andhra Pradesh would rank in the top list in terms of scouting for talent and providing them facilities to realize their aspirations. He said as the State was in its formative stages, it was needed that they go about the task with a frenzied pace.

He discussed various moadalities to finalise the bid for conducting of the 2017 National Games.

He exhorted them to develop infrastructure in all the 13 districts besides identifying lands to establish institutions of excellence whereby qualified coaches could produce world champions. He hoped that the DSDO would go to the interiors where talent waited to be nurtured.

The Minister said they should work against a set deadline while ensuring that state-of-the-art stadia could come up by 2017 and they could ready for the National Games.’

Principal Secretary A Vidya Sagar, Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of SAAP, Mohammed Abdul Azeem, Dronacharya A Ramana Rao and B K Harnath from the Olympic Association and several revered coaches participated in the meeting.