NEW DELHI: The Archery Association of India (AAI), fresh of elections that put in place a new governing team that has the support of the Union government, on Saturday proposed launching the Indian Archery League (IAL), a franchise-based league featuring top Indian and overseas archers.
IF (and that remains a big if) the AAI’s plans fructify, the IAL will come up by year-end and will see involvement from the corporate sector. “The main objective of the IAL is to popularise and commercialise the sport. It’s been an individual sport but here it will be a team sport. It’s yet to be confirmed but we want to start this by November-December,” AAI secretary general Pramod Chandurkar told PTI.
Be that as it may, former AAI secretary Anil Kamineni is overseeing the IAL project and the technical committee will finalise the details, the newswire further reports.
What there is more certainty around is AAI’s plan to hold an all-India inter-district tournament to spot talent at the grassroots level. The ambitious inter-district ‘Archery Mahakumbh’ will be held in Ranchi some time during May-June. Why? Because the Archery Mahakumbh is being lead by freshly minted AAI president Arjun Munda, who is also the Union tribal minister.
The Centre’s support will ensure that what is the “most ambitious project for the AAI”, where the former Jharkhand chief minister plans to bring together 10,000 archers from 700 districts across the country to compete with traditional bow and arrows in state capital Ranchi, will almost certainly be organised as per proposal. “It’s a mass archery project and will be held in in Ranchi. The main purpose is to spot talents at grassroots level. All competitions will be held in Indian rounds. We hope to start this in May-June,” Chandurkar said.
The first meeting of the AAI executive committee and general council here also decided to complete all the national-level senior to age group tournaments. “All the National Archery Championships-2019 including Senior National, Junior National, Sub-Junior National, Mini (U-14) National and U-9 Open National Championship will be conducted within a period of two months,” an AAI statement said.
AAI will also soon start a registration portal in which all the archers, coaches and officials will be able to register in compliance with World Archery, which has conditionally lifted the national federation’s suspension, following elections.
The Munda-led AAI also plans to bring together former administrators, Paresh Nath Mukherjee and Tarlochan Singh, as advisors.
