A visit to the Kalinga Sports Complex in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha, last February to watch the Men’s World Cup hockey final was an eye-opener. It was common knowledge that the eastern Indian state had carved a niche as the hub of hockey for quite sometime now, but one could feel that it was not going to rest on those laurels. It’s a huge testimony to the state’s (read: their long serving Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik) commitment, long-term vision and most importantly, mobilisation of resources.
The state’s efforts were endorsed in 2021 when Odisha was adjudged the Best State of the Decade for Promotion of Sports at the Sportstar Aces Awards – a vote of confidence that will not find too many detractors.
It’s also not surprising therefore when Tusharkanti Behera, Minister of State for Sports and Youth Services, Odisha, believes the state has succeeded in building a robust sports ecosystem that few Indian states can match.
Courting the world
“It all began with our Chief Minister’s slogan – Sports for Youth, Youth for the Future,” says Behera while speaking exclusively to GN Focus. “Hosting major international sporting events is a part of it, while we have been developing sporting infrastructure in an uniform manner throughout the state and also built up a series of High Performance Centres (HPC) at the Kalinga Sports Complex itself in the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model to groom future champions from the state in Olympic disciplines.”
We have been developing sporting infrastructure in an uniform manner throughout the state and also built up a series of High Performance Centres (HPC) at the Kalinga Sports Complex itself in the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model to groom future champions from the state in Olympic disciplines.”
A scale up of the state’s annual sports budget reflected this activity. From a modest Rs280 million in 2010-11, it has gone up to Rs12 billion for 2023-24 – a whopping figure when one takes into account that the Union government’s annual budget is to the tune of Rs30 billion.
Odisha, which branded itself as the biggest benefactors of hockey in India by becoming the first state to be sponsors of national teams in any sport – has hosted two senior men’s World Cups in the space of the last five years (2018, 2023); a junior World Cup in 2021, alongwith the annual edition of FIH Pro Leagues. It was a race against time for stakeholders as they managed to finish the Birsa Munda Stadium (named after the legendary tribal leader), a 20,000-seater state-of-the-art stadium, deemed the biggest hockey stadium in the world, and that was the second venue for this year’s World Cup. However, it’s not just hockey that’s put Odisha in the news.
In June this year, the state hosted the four-nation Intercontinental Cup football, where India emerged champions. Last year was equally significant, when the state hosted among other fixtures the Under-17 Fifa Women’s World Cup, BWF Odisha Open, a World Tour event of badminton and the FIH Pro League. However, it could be stated that it was hockey that set the ball rolling for Odisha.
“In a way, yes, as hockey had been very much in our culture, and the Sundargarh district has produced national-level players by the dozen,” Behera affirms. “It was the Chief Minister’s vision to support the sport when in 2018, the state entered into a five-year agreement with Hockey India to sponsor all the national teams for a period of five years,” the sports minister reflects.
“The agreement was supposed to come up for renewal this year but after the Tokyo Olympics, where the men’s team finished with a medal (bronze) after 41 years and the women finished fourth, the Chief Minister decided to extend the commitment even before it was due. The sponsorship now runs for another 10 years till 2033.”
Such examples of strategic thinking abound in the way the state has developed infrastructure. The tribal belt of Sundargarh has been a breeding ground of hockey players and now also offers potential to throw up rugby players, and the ministry has focused on building the requisite infrastructure here at the grassroots level. A total of 17 astro turf facilities are being built here, while Odisha also decided to adopt rugby as the next major sport, with sponsorship of the men and women’s national teams.
Vineel Krishna, Special Secretary to the Odisha Chief Minister, says, “The all-round sports infrastructure that Odisha is creating puts us in a strong position to consider bidding for hosting a multi-discipline event in future. While no concrete decision has been made yet, we are open to exploring such opportunities. We have the experience of hosting many national and international championships – so we look forward to continuing to be a major sports destination in India.”
Committed to nurture
A major plank of Odisha’s sporting revolution, of course, rests in the way the public and private sectors have joined hands to develop the High Performance Centres (HPC) in the capital. Each of the projects follow the same template where the government has built up infrastructure, while corporate giants like Reliance Industries, JSW, Aditya Birla Group, L.N.Mittal and Nippon Steel are committed to nurture the operations.
While Odisha has leveraged on its proactive image as one of the biggest benefactors of sport, the return on investment (ROI) is also being gauged. “See, the ROI we are looking at is not overnight,” says the sports minister. “We are looking to produce athletes from Odisha, across disciplines, for the 2028 and 2032 Olympics, and who can go on to win laurels for the country.”
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