In line with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to provide the best sports facilities to sportspersons, Indian Railways will provide a World Class Wrestling academy at Kishanganj in Delhi.
The ministry had committed Indian Railways wrestlers to provide the state-of-art wrestling academy at the earliest.
"In order to fulfill the commitment to provide a World Class Wrestling academy in Railways, a work has been sanctioned to establish the same at Kishanganj, Delhi at an approximate cost of Rs. 30.76 crores and will be another feather in the Cap of Railways," ministry said.
This academy, exclusively for wrestling, will be the biggest in the country equipped with advanced training facilities which will provide an opportunity to many budding wrestlers to become champions in the times to come, it read.
Indian Railways have played a paramount role in promoting wrestling in India and most of the elite wrestlers are from Railways. Most of the medals won by India in wrestling in the Olympics were from Indian Railways, that is, Sushil (2008 and 2012), Sakshi Malik (2016), Ravi Kumar and Bajrang (2020), the ministry informed.
In the recently concluded Tokyo Olympic 2020, the performance of Indian Railways (IR) sportspersons have been phenomenal and out of seven medals won by India, three individual medals by Mirabai Chanu (Silver in weightlifting), Ravi Kumar (Silver in Wrestling), Bajrang (Bronze in wrestling) and in Bronze medallist Indian Hockey Men team, two players were from Indian Railways.
As per the release, the Indian Railway is contributing to the promotion of sports through the Railway Sports Promotion Board (RSPB) in the country, in a big way. Railways have supported the sizable number of sportspersons by giving them job security with various incentives.
As of date, more than 9,000 sportspersons are on roll in 29 game disciplines in Indian Railways. Railway sportspersons have brought laurels for the country in all mega sports events like Olympics, Asian Games, Commonwealth Games etc and have been honoured with 27 Padamshree, 176 Arjuna, 12 Dhyanchand, 14 Dronacharya and 9 Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Awards for their outstanding sports achievements, it added.
( With inputs from ANI )
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