NEW DELHI: Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOC), which currently employs a number of athletes from ten different sports in the country, announced Thursday it would be increasing the number of disciplines the state-owned oil and gas major supports.
The announcement was made at a felicitation ceremony of 65 top Indian athletes at the ‘Sports Conclave 2018’ which was held in the city on Thursday, IANS reports.
The roster of athletes felicitated include Manika Batra, Rohan Bopanna, Parupalli Kashyap, Achanta Sharath Kamal, Aditya Tare, Ravikant Shukla, Aparna Balan, N Sikki Reddy, SR Arun Vishnu and Chandroday N Singh, among others.
They are a part of IOC’s Sports Scholarship Scheme, which involves recruiting 150 promising sportspersons across 10 sports – cricket, hockey, badminton, tennis, table tennis, golf, billiards/snooker, athletics, chess and carrom.
IOC had also recently declared another scholarship scheme for 150 upcoming sportspersons between the age of 14-19 who have either represented India or their state team at the junior or senior level.
IOC also used the occasion to announce an expansion of plans to develop sports in the country. It had also recently declared another scholarship scheme for 150 upcoming sportspersons between the age of 14-19 who have either represented India or their state team at the junior or senior level.
“Apart from the existing ten sports that we are promoting now, we are also planning to include sports like volleyball, basketball, archery, wrestling, and kabaddi in our scheme of things,” IOC director Ranjan Mohapatra told IANS.
“With a mantra of providing opportunities to budding sports persons we will continue to support and facilitate their training and participation in national/international events that can help them bring laurels for India as well as the corporation.”
“Sports remains a key component of Indian Oil’s CSR commitments and endeavours to create a sports revolution at the grass root level. The corporation is actively looking at the prospect of promoting sports in rural areas with plans to provide coaching facilities and kits in government schools.”
“For Indian Oil, sports is not just a medium for building brand equity it is also an important instrument through which future leaders for the corporations and for the nation are built. Sport is an integral part of Indian Oil’s core philosophy and we have been supporting sportspersons for over three decades now.”
“Indian Oil also aims to encourage former sportspersons to pursue coaching activity at national and international levels to groom young talented players and medal prospects to become future stars of the country,” Mohapatra told the newswire.
