Mumbai: Maharashtra Badminton Association on Sunday said it will focus on infrastructure development and increased use of technology to further promote the racquet sport in the state as it expects the count of its registered players to more than double in 12 months. The decision was made in the 75th Annual General Meeting held here today in Mumbai.
The members of the sports body were ecstatic with the gaining popularity of the sport in the past few years. They said this was evident with the overwhelming response the sports body was getting for all the state tournaments.
To cope up with the increasing strain of larger entries and to help players with better management of their tournament plan, the association has introduced new software, which saves players from the hassle of filling multiple forms for different tournaments. The single online form can now be also used for district, state, national and international tournaments. The software will provide timely updates via emails and SMS on changes regarding the entries or reminders about important notification, the last dates, etc. to the players. The District Associations too will have their own website linked and provided by MBA. They can run their tournaments, photographs, messages, sponsorship advt. on the same.
Speaking at the AGM, President of the Maharashtra Badminton Association, Arun Lakhani said, “Our focus in the coming years is to provide better facilities and support to our players. For the same, MBA intends to propose to Govt of Maharashtra to handover 6 large stadiums built at commissionarates like Pune, Aurangabad, Nasik, Nagpur, and facilities at district level built by the DSO. MBA aims to have at least 2 large academies functional by the end of 3 years and many more courts at district levels.”
MBA has aggressive plans to support talents for International events and has appealed the industry for their support. Corporate companies like Vishvaraj Infrastructure, ltd have been supporting talented players like Rasika and Arundhati from Nagpur for the past few years and results are now showing. Today, Rasika Raje is playing the finals in Poland International Series.
MBA will also actively promote players for sponsorship and recruitment as well with public sector companies, govt. departments, and corporate.
Lakhani informed that the association had also taken up the important issue of "sports marks" with the Government of Maharashtra. He said the association had proposed setting up a Maharashtra state ranking system from where the first 200 deserving players to be given 25 marks benefit. The number will depend on the players participating. It will give proper evaluation and regular players will be benefited.
Maharashtra Badminton Association will upload the ranking system on its website for feedback. The norms would be finalized after taking all stakeholders' views into consideration. Further, the MBA would put efforts through this website for placements of players in PSUs and other willing Corporates. He suggested creating pool of Sponsors or Corporates for adoption of talented players.
“MBA has plans to organize training camps for coaches where international coaches can come and train our coaches with newer latest techniques being used worldwide.”Two of our coaches have already done small courses with the BWF," he informed.
Recently the association hosted a spectacular event where Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, Sports Minister Vinod Tawade & other dignitaries felicitated Rio Olympic Silver medalist PV Sindhu and her coach Pulella Gopichand.
Arun Lakhani took over the reins of the Maharashtra Badminton Association in October 2015. Since then, the Maharashtra Badminton Association has been aggressively working towards putting together a robust grassroots development program and local tournaments to identity and hone young shuttlers from a very young age.
