Inauguration of 5th Asian School Hockey Championship on April 3

Bhopal: Inaugural programme of 5th Asian School Hockey Championship will be held at Aishbagh hockey stadium at 6.00 p.m. on April 3. Minister for Panchayat and Rural Development Gopal Bhargava will be the chief guest. Minister for School Education Kunwar Vijay Shah will preside over the programme. Former Chief Minister Babulal Gaur, Minister of State for Technical Education (Independent Charge) Deepak Joshi, Minister of State for Cooperatives Vishwas Sarang, Mayor Alok Sharma, MP Alok Sanjar, President Jila Panchayat Manmohan Nagar, MLAs Surendranath Singh, Vishnu Khatri, Arif Aqueel and Rameshwar Sharma wil grace the occasion.

Office bearers of School Games Federation of India Padam Vibhushan Satpal Ji, Padamshri Sushil Kumar, Dr. Rajesh Mishra and Chairman Municipal Corporation Bhopal Surjeet Singh Chouhan will present on the occasion. Programmes focusing cultural diversity of India will be held in the inaugural programme.

It may be mentioned that hockey championship is being organised by the School Education department for boys of under 18 years age. A total of 192 players and officers of 8 countries are taking part in the competition. Day and night matches will be held in Aishbagh stadium from April 4. Countries participating in the championship has been divided in ‘A’ and ‘B’ pools. Malaysia, Srilanka, China. U.A.E. are part of pool ‘A’ whereas pool ‘B’ is consist of Nepal, India, Singapore and Thailand. During the championship, 3 matches on each day will be played on April 4th and 5th. From April 6th to 11th, 2 matches will played each day. Hockey matches will begin from 4.00 p.m. and final match will take place on April 11 at 5.00 p.m. and closing ceremony will be held after the match. April 9th has been kept as rest day during the championship.-WTN