Shortage of coaches plagues Ludhiana sports department
District sports department in Punjab faces shortage of coaches, with only 14 available for 34 accredited games. Officials acknowledge the issue and plan to increase staff.
The district sports department is grappling with shortage of staff with coaches for only 14 games, sources said.
An officer at District Sports Office , on the condition of anonymity, said that the Punjab government had accredited 34 games, but there coaches are available for only 14 games.
A coach with the department here lamented that due to the crunch they were overburdened and instead of focusing on their trainees and producing high-class athletes they were just trying to keep the boat sailing by taking in more players than what they could handle.
“You see, athletics is an umbrella term for a dozen of events but what we have here is a single coach training people for everything from javelin to shotput throw. For example, Neeraj Chopra is an excellent athlete but would it be fair to expect him to train a shot put thrower?” he said.
“We are concerned with quantity here, not quality. And then the officers ask us for results, how do you expect a soldier without proper arms to get the desired results,” he lamented.
Deputy director of Punjab sports department, Parminder Singh Sidhu, while noting that he wasn’t sure about the exact number of coaches for games in the district, acknowledged the shortage of staff. When asked about what the department was doing to address the problem, he said, “We are in the process of increasing the sanctioned strength of our regular coaches.”
He also said that the department had on February 26 advertised vacancies for 270 coaches for the new sports nurseries, targeting every 10-12 villages, as per the new sports policy of the state government.
