Bengal has passion but not enough champions: Maken

Sports Minister Ajay Maken on Sunday lamented that despite having the most passionate sports fans in the country, Bengal has not produced enough champions and blamed lack of infrastructure for the sorry state of affairs.

Maken said if one looks at the progress, the state was behind by many years but promised that the Centre would support the newly-elected government in improving matters.

"Bengal has the highest percentage of sports lovers in the country. Nowhere in the world, people have so much of passion for sport. But If you look at the people who have excelled in Bengal, there has been a gap of say about 20-30 years..."

Addressing a state government felicitation of the Santosh Trophy winning Bengal squad and other successful sportpersons, Maken said the success rate would have been higher had the infrastructure been better.

With former India skipper Sourav Ganguly sharing the dais, Maken said, "I was wondering we could find many many old people among the recipients of the award today. Ganguly of course as a cricketer has brought in laurels for the country and the state.

"I strongly feel, going by the passion for sport of people in Bengal, the champions produced here in a decade or so is comparatively smaller."

"There is a gap as far as infrastructure and broad-basing of the sport is concerned. We have discussed a number of projects today. Our target is two-fold: to develop infrastructure and to take sport to grassroots level."

Maken said they were preparing an action plan to bridge the gap. "Other states have excelled. People have started coming up from the rural areas. We will be more than willing to help the state."

In another vein, the Union minister said the infrastructure in SAI Eastern Centre in Saltlake was under- utilised. "I saw the infrastructure in SAI and I can say that there is no proper utilisation to the infrastructure. We will try that the infrstructure built in SAI is used properly. We have taken up this matter."

Maken further said they were looking for a good sports administrator for SAI after the removal of former regional director S Harmilapi.

Harmilapi was ousted after national archers complained of 'leper-like' treatment at the Eastern Centre in Saltlake. "We had sent a team from Delhi to look into the matter. We have removed the regional director we are looking for a good administrator. We have some proposals in mind which we don't want to reveal. Soon you will see a very good administrator."

Asked about the state government's willingness to host the National Games, Maken said the ball was in IOA's courts but he would be personally happy with such a development. "If Kolkata wants to host the National Games. I would recommend the National Games for Kolkata for the passion of sport here. Nothing like that. Even then, the Centre is willing to help the state to bridge the gap of infrastructure here."