The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

SPORT

‘Ludhiana track by Oct-end’
By Arvind Katyal

CHANDIGARH, June 29 — “The concept of laying the synthetic surfaces in India is now taking off, which augurs well for the sport as a whole’’, quipped Rainer M Gintzel, Technical Managing Director of Polytan, a German organisation which has so far laid more than 2000 synthetic surfaces in the world.

A civil engineer, he has been for the past more than two decades with this group. He was in Chandigarh today after visiting Ludhiana, to have consultations with National Games organising committee officials. Polytan has been given the contract for laying the 400 metre running track for athletics event at Ludhiana for the forthcoming National Games.

Gintzel assured that the Ludhiana track would be one of the finest in India and they needed just three to four weeks for laying it. But due to rains in this part of the country, they might start the actual operations from the last week of September, so that by the end of October the track would become operational. He also disclosed that the drainage tunnel along the track would be made of aluminium, with surface material used of polyproplene.

Gintzel informed that he was looking after the technical guidance outside Germany and claimed that as far as durability of the surfaces was concerned, they were rated on top. He also told that it was his second visit to India and all marketing assignments in India were performed by Mr Rajesh Devgun. He said the Ludhiana track would have 8 sprint lane, high jump, long jump and hurdle races zone.

Gintzel said since he had come to look for new contracts, it was his moral duty to see for himself the smooth working of the technicalities involved. They would bring two to three workmen from Germany, who would be helped by local labour to man the laying at Ludhiana. He told that the equipment for the same was also supplied by their firm and they had done lot of efforts for testing the durability of their surfaces. He said the average life of this type of track was more than 12 years and with minor repairs its life span could be prolonged. He told that the track for the Munich Olympics was also laid by their firm and it was laid four years before the Olympics.

Gintzel had a meeting with technical officials of National Games in the city. He said their product range included polyurethene resins, tennis courts, gymnasium floors, safety surfaces and other multipurpose surfaces. He added that the material used for PU surfaces and artificial grass was fully environment friendly. These included compatibility such as transport, storage and installation after its effective lifetime, said Rainer. He said many firms in their trade were doing business from tax-free Cyprus.

He said they had opted to lay the turf for hockey with their mega turf at Lucknow. Mr Devgun told that in India people mistook astro turf for synthetic surface in hockey, whereas it was actually the brand name of Balzen company, which was now a sick unit. In Chandigarh, the sector 42 hockey turf was in bad shape and it was a big surprise as it could last for few years, felt Gintzel. He added that the width of the PU made material for mega turf was between 7 and 8 mm.

The German engineer also envisaged more multipurpose indoor halls with mobile synthetics surface mats, where lot of sport events like badminton, basketball, and handball could be played. He told that their next target was submitting tenders for turfs of National Stadium, JLN Stadium and Shivaji Stadium, Delhi, and NIS, Bangalore. Gintzel said Punjab had lot of sport-minded persons and with national games round the corner, the sport infrastructure would be a boom to sport in the state.

Shiva, Sanjana lift titles
By Our Sports Reporter

CHANDIGARH, June 29 — Shiva Sangwan disposed of Arjun Sehgal in straight sets to clinch the under-10 boys title in the PD Vashisht memorial — ‘total’ tennis tournament today, being played here at Lake Club courts, Sector 6. In under-12 girls final, Sanjana Kapoor, a DPS school student from of Noida, bagged the title by making short work of city girl Inayat Khosla in straight sets.

In under-14 section, city boy Rohan Bhandari proved too good for Jay Vinod to secure a berth in the last four of this section, while others to join him were Harneet Singh, Sanam K Singh and Yuvraj Chaudhary. In girls under-16 section, the semi-finalists were Neha Dhami, Gungeet Bains, Kriti Puri and Amarpreet Shallu.

In boys under-16 section, Ankit Raj, Sanam K Singh, Aditya Ahuja and Harneet Singh made it to the last four of the tournament. Earlier, the one-hour heavy rain in the morning disturbed the schedule of matches, which were then played on hard courts. Later, in the late afternoon, grass courts were also put to use.

Results: finals-boys under-10- Shiva Sangwan b Arjun Sehgal 6-2, 6-0; girls under-12- Sanjana Kapoor b Inayat Khosla 6-2, 6-2; quarter-finals: boys: under-14—Rohan Bhandari b Jay Vinod 8-5; Harneet Singh b Gurtej Pannu 8-0; Sanam K Singh b Navinder Pal Singh 8-2; Yuvraj Chaudhary b Dilpreet Singh 8-1; under-16: Ankit Raj b Annie Mehta 8-5; Sanam K Singh b Yuvraj Chaudhary 8-7(7-3); Aditya Ahuja b Amarharpreet 8-6; Harneet Singh b Dilpreet Singh 8-3; girls: under-14—Neha Dhami b Isha Lamba 6-2; Gungeet Bains w/o Taskeen Bains; Kriti Puri b Reenut Sandhu 6-5(7-3); Amarpreet Shallu b Vidhi 6-0.

ADMINISTRATION

Residents to be given garbage disposal bags
Tribune News Service

CHANDIGARH, June 29 — With a view to improve sanitation in the city, the environment and city beautification committee of the local Municipal Corporation (MC) has decided that the residents should be provided bags for the disposal of the garbage.

The issue was discussed at the meeting of the committee held here yesterday. It was proposed that the bags would be collected either by the staff of the MC or a contractor.

Through another important decision, the committee urged the civic body to intensify the anti-encroachment drive and take action against the residents encroaching upon the government land again. Members wanted that the officials adopting discriminatory attitude while removing encroachments should be held accountable.

For this purpose the committee wanted the civic body to develop seven model sub-sectors so that people were educated about which type of structures were allowed outside their houses.

Expressing concern at the frequent complaints against sweepers the members desired that the area councillors should be given periodic reports regarding the work done by the sweepers in their respective areas.