At the national level, Bihar is nowhere to be counted in the world of sports.
On a few occasions when a player from Bihar reaches the national team, it seems that he left his state years ago to make a place in the world of sports.
In such a state, there has been a complete lack of basic facilities for sports. But these days, there is a lot of discussion about a new sports university and sports complex in Bihar.
The university to be built in Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s own district Nalanda and the sports complex built there are also being described as his dream projects.
The Women’s Asian Hockey Championship is being organized in this sports complex from November 11.
Apart from hosting India, teams from China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan, and Thailand are participating in it.
During the women’s hockey match between China and Thailand on November 11, the Bhojpuri song ‘Aave tani khele raua range hariyar…’ was playing in the stadium.
Along with the local audience, four cheer girls wearing white and blue midi were also seen dancing to this song. The direction in which the cheer girls dance, and the faces of the people sitting in the stadium turn in that direction.
This event will continue till November 20 at Rajgir Sports Complex, located 110 km from Bihar’s capital Patna.
A large number of spectators from the rural population of Rajgir are reaching the stadium. For this population, the experience of watching cheerleaders, hockey turf, and girls playing in shorts is new.
Anshu Kumari, who came here, says, “We are very excited to see the girls’ match. We are seeing this for the first time in Bihar. Girls will come forward in sports because of this.”
Mansukh’s friend Smriti Kumari, standing near him, says, “We did not expect that this would ever happen in Rajgir. The good thing is that now if someone wants to play, he will get everything in Rajgir itself.”
However, amidst these expectations, many people have objections to the attire of the players.
As Jaya Devi, a laborer in the stadium, says, “Wearing such short clothes, the girl was playing everything and all the men were watching her.”
But, this event is showing Bihar’s presence in the world of sports and the target is to start the state’s first sports university in this sports complex by the year 2025.
Bihar’s first sports university
In October 2018, the Rajgir sports complex started being built on 90 acres in Rajgir in the state’s Nalanda district. On the lines of the ancient Nalanda University, exposed brick work has been used in this complex.
Exposed brickwork does not use plaster, paint, or any other type of paint. The buildings built in the sports complex give a glimpse of the ruins of Nalanda University.
State Sports Academy, Sports University and an international level cricket stadium are being built in this sports complex for Rs 750 crore.
Chief Minister Nitish Kumar inaugurated the State Sports Academy and Bihar Sports University on 29 August 2024.
However, construction work is still going on here and it will take time for all the facilities to arrive.
Inside the campus, laborers from different parts of Bihar, Bengal, and Jharkhand are living in the temporary colony built here and doing construction work.
When asked about this, State Sports Minister Surendra Mehta tells BBC, “Work is going on in the sports complex right now and we hope that by November 2025, the sports university will start and the cricket stadium will be ready. Along with this, we will be able to start facilities for many sports by March 2025.”
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An international-level cricket stadium is also being built
This campus will have indoor and outdoor stadiums for a total of 23 sports including football, hockey, swimming, archery, basketball, handball, lawn tennis, cycling, taekwondo, kabaddi, judo, and fencing.
This sports complex will have hostels for students, coach accommodation, transit hostel, and staff accommodation.
Apart from these 23 sports being run under the Sports Academy, an international-level cricket stadium is also under construction in this sports complex.
Many types of appointments are also being made for such large infrastructure facilities. A total of 114 posts are to be appointed in the cricket stadium, out of which 81 are permanent posts.
At the same time, talking about the Sports University, in November 2024, the government has appointed former IAS Shishir Sinha as its first Vice-Chancellor.
According to the press release issued by the state government, “To promote sports education in the field of physical education, sports science, sports technology, sports management, sports testing in the state of Bihar, as well as to act as a high-level research center for sports, the state government approved the establishment of Bihar Sports University on 16 July 2021.”
The goal is to win medals in the 2032 Olympics
The state of Bihar, with a population of about 13 crore, is also called a ‘hollow’ or ‘sports deficit state’ in terms of sports. The government has been trying in recent years to break this ‘perception’.
This is the reason why on January 9 this year, the government formed the ‘Sports Department’ to promote sports activities and players.
Earlier, sports activities were under the ‘Arts, Culture and Youth Department’. Earlier, the state government had formed the Bihar State Sports Authority.
Bihar State Sports Authority and State Sports Academy director Ravindran Shankaran tells BBC, “We have received a road map from Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, on which the authority is working. The first is to give sports a movement form in Bihar. The second is the inclusion of Bihar children in the Indian team in the 2028 Olympics and the third is to win medals in the 2032-36 Olympics.” To win medals, first, we need players and then we need coaches to groom these players.
When asked about these two aspects, Shankaran says, “We have issued an advertisement to appoint 200 coaches in 14 sports. We currently aim to make Rajgir Sports Complex a State Center for Excellence and later a National Center for Excellence.”
Improvement in Bihar’s performance in sports
If we look at the last few years, the youth of Bihar have started appearing in sports competitions at the national level. Bihar won only two bronze medals in the National Games held in Gujarat in the year 2022.
But, in the National Games held in Goa in the year 2023, this figure increased to nine, which included six bronze and three silver medals.
Similarly, in the National School Games in 2017-18, where the state got 37 medals, their count increased to 74 in 2023-24.
Apart from this, the state has also made its presence felt in the Paralympic Games and the Asian Games held in China. Harendra Singh, the national coach of Indian women’s hockey, is from the Saran district of Bihar.
He said, “I have traveled to 57 countries and this sports complex being built in Bihar is one of the best sports complexes in the world. My appeal to the parents of Bihar will be to bring their children into sports. Sports gives health, fame, and wealth.”
Is building a sports complex enough?
Amidst the government’s claims and promises regarding the complex, the biggest question is whether building a sports complex is enough.
On this question, Dharmanath, a sports journalist for the daily newspaper Prabhat Khabar, says, “Having university and sports facilities on the same campus will give many options to a player. Along with playing sports, he can also make a career in disciplines like sports science, academics, nutrition. This will establish Bihar in the field of sports.”
Uttara Ganeshan, a sports journalist with English newspaper The Hindu, believes that a lot still needs to be done.
She says, “Just setting up a complex here will not solve the problem. You will have to develop Nalanda-Rajgir as per your international and national players. Connectivity is a big issue right now, the approach road is very narrow, there are no good hotels. The team that has come for the hockey championship is staying in Gaya. It takes them 1.5 to 2 hours to travel from there.”
It is clear that a lot still needs to be done in the direction of facilities and identification of sports talent.
‘Talent scouting’ from the grassroots
For this, the state government has recently made a program to form sports clubs in panchayats across the state.
That is, the responsibility of testing talents in the government schools, which are the centers of talent at the grassroots level, is on the physical education teachers. But, these teachers have been continuously protesting against the state government.
That is, those who are responsible for talent scouting or finding and grooming talents are angry. Teachers working in government schools in Bihar get only Rs 8,000 as an honorarium every month.
Rajesh Kumar Pandey of Bihar State Physical Teachers and Instructors Association tells BBC, “We were appointed after taking an examination in the year 2022. 2500 physical teachers are appointed. We do eight hours of duty every day, the government employs us in every small and big work from recruitment of Home Guards, Chhath Puja, Pind Daan in Gaya, but the honorarium is less than that of a laborer.”
‘Bring a medal, get a job’
When BBC asked Sports Minister Surendra Mehta a question in this regard, he replied, “They are not under us.”
The question is, if talents are not identified in the interior areas of Bihar, how will the state benefit from the established infrastructure on the sports front?
Apart from forming Panchayat Sports Clubs, the government has also started sports scholarships and the Bring a Medal, Get a Job scheme.
Mohammad Afzal Alam and Shyama Rani are football players. Both these players have got jobs through sports quota.
Both of them claim, “The Bihar government is trying to take its schemes to the grassroots level and if you see the calendar of the Bihar government, activities are constantly happening at the national and international level. Which is a process to bring sports talents to the fore.”
Sports Authority Director Ravindran Shankar says, “In just two months, we have given jobs to 71 players. Bihar is the first state in which players will win medals at the national and international level, upload them on the portal and get jobs according to their achievements. There will be no red tape in this.”
Rajgir Khel Parivar does ride the chariot of hope in the state, but success in the world of sports is not achieved by just building structures, talents have to be honed with dedication and intention.
But right now this new and under-construction complex is an opportunity for players to be happy.
As the state’s emerging hockey player Jyotish Kumar says, “There is a positive feeling. Earlier we did not get turf. We used to play on grass and directly play in tournaments. Now with the increase in sports facilities, we will be able to perform well.”
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