National shooting camp faces power cuts, authorities clueless

Picture this: London Olympic-bound shooters sitting at the 10m range inside Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex at Balewadi, waiting for the electricity to be restored so that they can resume their practice at the national camp. After waiting for good 30 minutes, they opt for dry practice (practicing without firing bullets) at the 50m range.

The shooting ranges are fortunate enough to host the Indian shooting camp ahead of the London Olympics. But unfortunately, they are not well-equipped to run smoothly.

If you thought this was a shocking piece of news, read this: When DNA went to enquire about the power backup facility for the national shooters, the deputy director of sports, Maharashtra, Janak Tekale told that there was no such camp going on in the complex.

“There is no camp going on in the complex.
There is national hockey team attending a camp here but apart from that, there is no other camp going on in the campus,” he told DNA.

I just had a meeting with the Sports Authority of India (SAI) officials and even they didn’t talk about it.”

Interestingly, the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) had got the camp sanctioned by SAI as well as from Tekale’s office.

In the sanction letter, the NRAI had specifically asked for power backup taking the loadshedding into consideration.

Meanwhile, when asked about the negligence and how the shooters are suffering because of this, India’s rifle coach Stanislav Lapidus said, “It is in front of you people.” He went on to add, “I am a very positive person. If there is no power, there is no use to sit and cry. I instead take the shooters to the 50m range and ask them to do some dry practice till the power is back.”

The camp is scheduled to be held till June 25 and six shooters — Gagan Narang, Annu Raj Singh, Vijay Kumar, Rahi Sarnobat, Sanjeev Rajput and Joydeep Karmakar — will be participating in the camp.