Renovation works in race against time

With only four days left for the start of the Hero Asia Cup, the Bangladesh Hockey Federation (BHF) is running against time to prepare the venue for the eight-nation tournament, which is being held in Bangladesh after 32 years.

The installation of floodlights, apart from upgradation of other facilities at the Maulana Bhasani Stadium, was one of the preconditions in getting the nod for hosting Asian hockey's showpiece event. However, the BHF officials are a bit worried about handing over the venue to the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) officials within the deadline [Sunday] due to unfinished work at the big bowl.

The National Sports Council (NSC), the organisation which is responsible for upgradation of facilities, started renovation work at the venue in late August and those works are yet to be completed.

“The NSC was supposed to hand over the stadium to us on September 30, but it deferred the completion date to October 5.  The works are still going on,” said BHF vice president Khaza Rahmatullah yesterday.  

Though an NSC official claimed that all major works have already been completed and now just the finishing touches such as washing, cleaning and painting are going on, an inspection of the venue revealed something otherwise.  The stadium is still full of debris; the boundary fences have not been completed; the installation of electronic board beneath the flood-light towers was still going on while the glasses at the VIP gallery for the players were still being installed.

The NSC official, however, claimed that they got little time to renovate everything including four dressing rooms with ice-bath, the bathrooms, the extension of the press box, upgradation of the VIP boxes, drainage system and installation of a giant screen after having started their work on August 23.   

Apart from the scheduled works, the NSC also has to do additional work for the probable attendance of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in the final as they have been installing an elevator and decorating a room for the PM.

NSC's assistant director Sukumar Saha said that they would be able to complete all the work by Sunday and hand it over to the game's local governing body the same day. However, the BHF officials claimed that the newly-installed floodlights lack luminosity.   

“The average lux of floodlights is 1663 at the moment and it is more in places like the centre of the pitch and the goalposts even though the BHF's demand was only 1250 lux,” Sukumar said.  “Everything we did has been done after numerous consultations with the BHF officials.”

The BHF officials., however, may feel a bit of comfort due to the satisfaction expressed by AHF event and sports director Elisabeth Fuerst. The AHF official, though, emphasised on putting on great effort to complete everything before the start of the tournament.

“I think some very good progress has been made since I last visited couple of weeks ago. Obviously the lighting is now there and it looks very good. I think it's definitely international standard but there are still lots of work to be done and there is very little time left. So I think in the next four days, we must make big effort to make sure that everything is ready for the first day of matches,” Fuerst told reporters after inspecting the Maulna Bhasani Hockey Stadium.