Friday, January 23, 2009

Promotion of coaches as district in-charge flayed



‘HASTY DECISION WOULD MAR SPORTS IN KASHMIR’

ABID KHAN
Srinagar, Jan 22: The J&K State Sports Council decision to handover the affairs of districts to coaches has come under severe criticism from the sports fraternity as they felt it would set in the rot in this already coach-starved sports body of the state. The Council reportedly issued an order wherein four coaches, one manager and one district-head have been promoted as in-charge officers for various districts. The order reads “they will now function as district in-charge and will undertake all the sports activities of district.” However, the new assignment is in addition to their current coaching task. “The appointments have been made in accordance with recruitment rules and the promoted will now act as district in-charges,” sports officer Kashmir, M S Baba said. The Sports Fraternity has criticized the Council for “taking the decision in haste without thinking about the consequences.” “We’re not against the promotions,” said a noted sports analyst, Sajid Hameed adding that any decision should go hand-in-hand with the safeguarding of the interests of a department. “These will serious mar sports in the valley especially when the number of coaches available with the Council is less.” He said the promotions have been effected without the appointment of new coaches. Another non-government sports body, the Jammu Kashmir Football Association, criticised the decision calling it detrimental to the sports in Kashmir. “The coaches deserve promotions but other related aspects have been ignored,” said an official of the Association, Fayaz Ahmad Sofi. He said the valley had several jobless coaches trained by the National Institute of Sports (NIS) who could have been taken. “We have a number of unemployed NIS coaches who should have been appointed before effecting these promotions,” he said. “The new government should initiate steps to streamline the Council to save the future of sports in the valley.” Even the officials of the Council seem unpleased with the decision: “The procedure and functioning of the Council in this case is objectionable,” said the joint secretary of the Council, Abdur Rouf. “I have no objection over the promotion of coaches but the decision will result in the dearth of coaches in the already ailing sports arena of the valley.” He said Jammu had more coaches compared to nine in the valley. “I don’t think they will be able to carry on with twin assignments with coaching being the prime one,” he said. He said that he had requested the secretary of the Council to halt the order until new coaches were recruited. He said the Council had set a wrong precedence and had done things such as these previously as well. “It is not for the first time that coaches have been appointed as district in-charges,” he said. “Coaches have been promoted as managers, under- secretaries and in-charges but they never delivered properly and were unable to do justice with their coaching assignment.” He said that such procedure should be abolished sooner than later.


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