Waseem Ahmad
SRINAGAR, Apr 23: With the onset of summer season and sports activities on rise, the main football field of the city, Polo Ground football stadium is in pathetic condition as it has been turned into a dumping yard by the Traffic police.
Considered as one of the famous football fields of the valley, Polo ground football stadium which has hosted many tournaments in past craves for maintenance now.
After the devastating floods of 2014 in which most of the Srinagar city got submerged, no measures were taken by Jammu and Kashmir State Sports Council (JKSSC) for the maintenance of Polo Ground and traffic police took advantage of this negligence and dumped the vehicles which they seize.
Locals also complained that polo ground football stadium which was one of the beautiful grounds in the Valley is in shambles and nothing is done on its maintenance now. “The condition of polo ground is very bad nowadays as they have just neglected this ground, while in past all the football activities were held in this ground”, Hilal Ahmad, a local said
As per the former football players, polo ground was neglected after Valley got its first football stadium in TRC Srinagar with an imported synthetic turf in September 2014.
The synthetic turf for the stadium was procured from Italy and was laid over six layers of base course with an estimated cost of about Rs 4.50 crores.
The professional football players of the Valley lamented that football grounds with synthetic turfs are not good for the players. “One cannot always play on grounds on which synthetic turf is laid as it hampers the performance of the players”, Haroon Rashid, a football player who plays for a local club here said.
Nazir Ahmad, Joint Secretary, JKSSC said that after repeatedly writing to the Traffic department, they assured that the land will be vacated soon. “We have a positive response from the Traffic Police Department. The IGP traffic has assured us that this issue will be redressed and from past few days, they had stopped dumping vehicles there,” he said
Asked about not maintaining Polo ground, he said due to weather conditions, the maintenance work has not started yet. “We usually start the maintenance work after April and we have already asked our engineering wing to maintain the ground,” he said, adding, “Besides, maintaining the central football ground, a separate field has been made on which Rugby will be played.”
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