Gandhinagar, 17 July, 2014

Gujarat government has appointed former Indian Hockey team captain Dhanraj Pillai as mentor.

Minister of state for Sports Nanubhai Vanani shared this detail while speaking at state assembly today.

He said, Padmashree Dhanraj Pillai has been selected as mentor to train youths in the state. Pillai recently visited Rajkot, Modasa and Gandhinagar for talent hunt, he added.

Vanani said at present 19 districts are having sports complex. In near future, Rajkot, Anand, Navsari and Porbandar will also get sports complexes.

He said the government has taken a decision to set up Swarnim Gujarat Sports University at Chakori village of Padra taluka in central Gujarat. While state government has allocated Rs. five crore for proposed university, the central government through UGC has also agreed to allocate matching grant of Rs. five crore.

The state government has made provision of Rs. 65 crore for Khel Mahakumbh event to find out talent. In each game of Khel Mahakumbh, 100 talented sports persons will be identified separately and they will be given further training through Vivekananda Pratibha Samvardhan Kendra.