Salt Lake stadium to get new athletics track

Kolkata, Nov 16: After a span of 52 years, Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata is going to have a new tartan athletics track.

The new track will be exactly similar to the track at Jamaica's Racers' Club which is used by legendary Olympian Usain Bolt.

Racers' Club has got the blue tartan track, exclusively for the training of Bolt from a German company. The track has reportedly costed Rs 5.77 crore.

The sports ministry of West Bengal took the initiative for the relaying of new tartan tracks almost one and half years ago.

But the planning could not be converted to reality as the state sports ministry was struggling with the required amount of money.

Finally, after the central government allotted the required amount of money to refurbish the Stadium ground for the under-17 World Cup, the required Rs 10 crores for the track has also been sanctioned.

In this case, state sports ministry will be paying no more than Rs 55 lakhs for the installation of the blue tartan tracks.

Considering the plans, revealed by West Bengal sports minister Mr Arup Biswas recently, the laid tartan track will be shifted to Rabindra Sarobar Stadium and be laid there for the training of Bengal's upcoming talented athletes.

And the medal winning athletes of the state will be asked to train on the blue tartan track at the Salt lake Stadium.

Since 1984, when the stadium was made, this will be the first time the athletics track will be relaid. And the country's athletics federation is also planning to organise international championship in near future on this track.

OneIndia News