The Tribune, Chandigarh, India - Chandigarh Stories

HEALTH

‘Give medicines from PGI dispensary’
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 11
The failure of the PGI administration in providing medicines to its staff from the institute dispensary for the past few months is causing a lot of inconvenience to employees.

The PGI Employees Union yesterday met the PGI Director, Prof S.K. Sharma, to request him to provide medicines to the employees, faculty members and their dependents at the dispensary.

The senior vice-president of the union, Mr Bal Krishan, said the employees, who were indoor patients, had to face a lot of inconvenience as they buy the medicines from the market for which they get the reimbursement later.

He said despite repeated requests to the administration and an assurance from the Director in November, 2002, last that the matter would be settled at the earliest, nothing had been done to solve the problem. He said the employees had to follow a cumbersome procedure for getting the reimbursement. PGI officials said efforts were on to sign a contract with a party, who would supply the medicines as was being done earlier.

SPORTS

Doping row shocks sports fraternity
Arvind Katyal

Chandigarh, April 11
The recent doping controversy involving three sportspersons from Chandigarh, has shocked the local sports fraternity, but it has brought forth the need to be aware about drug abuse in sport. The Indian Olympic Association had recently announced that for dope tests conducted during the 32nd National Games, Hyderabad held in December 2002, 22 players had tested positive out of which three belonged to the city. Rower Laxman Singh had tested positive for both A and B samples while two city-based weightlifters Gurpreet and Ranjit Singh had tested positive for sample A. But the moot point was that whether enforcing the ban on these sportspersons would help in rooting out drug menace or if other methods should also be adopted. Chandigarh Tribune spoke to a cross-section of sports personalities on this issue.

Nirmaljit Singh, a name synomous with powerlifting in Chandigarh and the strongman, who had won a silver and a bronze medal in the Senior Asian Championship, appealed for launching an awareness drive on the banned drugs. Nirmaljit, who had been into powerlifting for almost three decades, felt sad at the involvement of two city-based weightlifters in the doping case. When asked what could have prompted these weightlifters to take drugs, he refused, just to achieve instant gains, without thinking its implications in the longer run.

Nirmaljit said, it took a long time to achieve laurels in power sports, specially weightlifting, but by just effecting a change in the metabolism rate of one’s body with intake of drugs, for a short period, results could be manipulated. He advocated a positive role for the coaches concerned and the association officials concerned to make sure that none of their trainees were in the habit of resorting to drugs. He, however, said, no one had expected from Gurpreet and Ranjit to win any medal in the 32nd National Games. He said, the use of drugs was a long time process and it was not that just before any tournament, the drugs could enhance performance of any athlete.

Mr H.S. Bansal, secretary of the Chandigarh Amateur Weightlifting Association, was of the view that they did not have any sophisticated machines to check whether any of their lifters was under the influence of drugs. Mr Bansal said, normally they did advise all their trainees to work hard and wait for the gains on this very basis only. Mr Bansal said, however, they would further try to ensure that their trainees be told about the ill effects of use of drugs on their sports career.

Mr J.P.S. Sidhu, Joint Director Sports, UT, said that in foreign countries, it was a normal practice for the sportspersons, but since they had a proper scientific backing, so they got away scot free, even if they consumed drugs. He said in India, the lack of scientific back-up and awareness gave more trouble to our athletes, who wanted to make quick gains by resorting to performance-enhancing drugs. Mr Sidhu said, for the past more than seven decades, in various Olympics, the athletes had tested positive. He said, the need of the hour was to educate the younger generation about the ill effects of use of drugs. On putting ban on the athletes, he said, this could give a warning signal to other athletes.

Mr Sudhir Aggarwal, who runs a Bon Sante, a private coaching centre for weightlifters and powerlifters said, they usually counselled to their trainees against the bad effects of drugs. On the general impression that diet supplements in the health centres were also helpful in performance enhancing, Mr Aggarwal said the diet supplements which they had in their centres all had proper certification.

Jaanesh, Ekta reach last four
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, April 11
Jaanesh Kaur and Ekrup made it to the last four of the girls under-14 section of the YMCA Total Tennis Tournament at the YMCA, Sector11. There was a major upset in the under-14 section when Mandeep Gill lost to unseeded Navdeep Singh of the Sector 16 centre.

Other results are:Boys under-14 Pre-quaterfinals — Mandeep Yadav b Ankit Mahajan, Navkaran Gill b Nakul Jain, Ankit Badoni b Manpreet Singh, Navdeep Singh b Sidharth Singh, Chetanya Verma b Anant Vidur Puri, Ishaan Thukral b Ishaan, Akshit Chopra b Ankit and Yuvresh Bansal b Akshat.

Boys under-10 quarterfinals — Garry A. Singh b Uday Mann, Samin Bharghav b Ankur Diwan, Sanyam Gupta b Manik Khanna and Karan Sidana b Fateh Singh.

Boys under-12 Pre-quaterfinals — Ankit b Avi, Shiv b Soman, Raghav b Jaivardhan, Abhairaj b Navkaran, Garry Singh b Nitin, Akshat Joshi b Jaiveer and Mandeep b Vishal.

Boys under-18 pre-quaterfinals — Rohan b Chirag, Gurmehar b Ankit, Parvesh b Abhijeet, Uday b Parul and Ankit b Rohit.

Girls under-14 quaterfinals — Jaanesh Kaur b Avleen, Ekrup b Aayushi Walia, Chankrit b Smily and Divya b Anisha.

Girls under-12 — Jaanesh b Bhavika, Mrignaynee b Nanki Arora, Vani b Mehar, Pallak b Devina, Iktesh b Pavet, Anisha b Nupur and Aarushi b Krishna.

Cricket semi-finals

Sector 16 Stadium XI and St John’s Cricket Coaching Centre, Sector 26, will clash with each other in the final of the first S.N. Vohra Memorial Cricket Tournament for the under-12 section.

In the first semi-final, Sector 16 Stadium XI overpowered Panchkula Coaching Centre by 171 runs while in the second semi-final, St John’s Cricket Coaching Centre, Sector 26, defeated MCA, SAS Nagar, by 10 wickets.

Ist tie: Sector 16 Stadium XI: 198 runs for one (Sahil 95 n.o., Gurinder 34 n.o. and Manan Vohra 28) PCC: — 27 runs all out (Gurinder 3 for six and Ajay Powat 2 for nine).

IInd tie: MCA ‘A’ XI — 98 runs all out (Gitansh 50, Sahil 4 for 12,Sprasher 3 for 23 and Gaurav 3 for 25) St John’s CC — 99 no loss (Saurav 57 n.o., and Vishal 32 n.o.) The finals will be played tomorrow at 1.30 pm.

Stadium XI ‘A’ win

Gourav Gambhir scored 69 runs and claimed four wickets for 32 runs and enabled Stadium XI ‘A’ team in beating JR Institute XI in a tough encounter here today at the Sector 16 stadium.

In other matches of the day, Stadium XI ‘B’ team beat Hillions XI by eight wickets, Youth CC beat Sun CC by 10 runs while Suriya XI defeated Sohan XI by 48 runs.