Railways astro turf hockey stadium opens in hyderabad city

Secunderabad: A synthetic astro turf hockey stadium was inaugurated by Vinod Kumar Yadav, Chairman Railway Board, here on Sunday. The FIH (Fédération Internationale de Hockey) certified hockey field is designed to host any top-level hockey matches in the city, thereby giving a fillip to the game.

In addition to the most modern and technologically advanced Astro Hockey Turf, the stadium project includes a sprinkler system with a one lakh litre underground water tank to water the ground, VIP gallery, a gallery to seat 5,000 spectators with tensile roofing, chain link fencing around the hockey field, an arch gate and AC changing rooms. The total field area of the stadium is 6,426 sq.mtrs, while the play area is 5027 Sq.mtrs.

The Rs 5.8 crore project took just a year to complete. Works started in October 2018. The design and execution of the synthetic hockey stadium was undertaken by Great Sports Tech, a city-based sports infra provider.

The South Central Railway Hockey Team has been the champion in the All India Railway Tournaments for many years and have built a young and strong team, looking to the future. Five SCR players represented Indian Railways in the Senior National Hockey Championship, enabling the team to win the gold medal. Syed Niyaz Rahim and Pratap Lakra of SCR have been part of the Indian hockey team in international events.

B B Singh, Additional General Manager, SCR, J K Jain, Principal Chief Mechanical Engineer and president of SCR Sports Association, N S R Prasad, Division Railway Manager, Hyderabad, M Raghavaiah, General Secretary of SCR Employees Sangh, and A K Singh, Chief Electrical Engineer (Construction) were amongst those present.