Gill elected IHF president for third term

Super cop K P S Gill was unanimously elected Indian Hockey Federation president for a third consecutive term in Guwahati on Tuesday.

The IHF annual general meeting saw unanimous election of the entire executive, which later met to chart out the course of Indian hockey for the next four years.

There was no opposition to Gill's candidature, and once he was elected, the rest of the executive retaining their posts was a mere formality.

Chandigarh IPS officer Chandra Sekhar, former MP Keshab Mahanta from Assam and N K Batra of Jammu and Kashmir are the three senior vice-preidents.

K Jyothikumaran of Tamil Nadu stays as secretary general. J N Tyagi of UP will continue as treasurer.

The other vice presidents are Gursewak Singh (Patiala), M S Mallik (Haryana), Unni (Madhya Pradesh), Dinesh Vajpayee, (Bengal), Bakshi Dalbir Singh (Mumbai), Kashyab (IA) and Ejaz Hussain (Bihar).

The joint secretaries are: S P Das (HP), K Krishnamurty (Karnataka), Pratap Sathpathy (Orissa), Ramchandra Rao (Hyderabad) and Gurdeep Singh (Universities).

The executive committee comprises Satyanarayana (Hyderabad), Balraj Ahir (Vidarbha), K Souhu (Nagaland), H Khiangte (Mizoram), Brig (retd) Irani (Maharashtra), Ramesh Kolappa (Kerela), Ajay Gupta (Bhopal), Col A D Sharma (Services), S S Saini (Punjab), Niranjan Reddy (Andhra), NG Munindro Singh (Manipur), H P Tiwari (M P) and Rajinder Singh (Punjab).

''There has been complete unanimity in the whole election procedure and Indian Olympic Association observer Gurdeep Singh has expressed satisfaction over it,'' said Gill, while talking to newsmen later.

Setting out his agenda, he said the first target is improving India's standing at the international level. The second objective, he added, is expansion of the game in the country.

The meeting also saw the formal entry of four more state units into the IHF. They are Arunachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Uttaranchal and Chhattisgarh, making the unit strength 35.

Despite some initial reservation towards holding the meeting at Guwahati, all the state units were represented at the meeting, informed Gill. He pointed out that it was at his insistence that the meeting was held at Guwahati despite opposition from some quarters.

Gill is an IPS officer from Assam, where he served a major part of his life before moving to Punjab to tackle the militancy problem there.

Saying corporate sponsorship still remains a major hurdle in the development of Indian hockey, Gill informed: "We need Rs 10 crore [100 million] to run Indian hockey, but we get about Rs 3 crore [30 million].''

He was, however, hopeful of roping in some big corporate names after the end of the current financial year.

''Talks are at a critical stage and I would not like to name the corporate sectors. But I can assure that they are big names and have assured that after the closure of accounts on March 31, they will come up in a big way," he said.