After inauguration last December, indoor sports complex in Vashi lying unused

The indoor sports complex in Vashi was developed mainly for promoting games such as billiards, table tennis, carrom and chess; NMMC official says they are in the process of hiring a billiards coach and will open the facility after that

To give a boost to the city’s sports infrastructure, the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) had developed an indoor sports complex at Vashi Sector 10 and inaugurated it last December.

The indoor sports complex at Sector 10 in Vashi. (HT PHOTO)

However, the complex has not been opened for the local residents even for a single day after that.

According to officials from the civic sports department, the complex was developed mainly for promoting games such as billiards, table tennis, carrom and chess. They developed the single-storied building of the complex by spending ₹66 lakh on one part of a ground near the mini-seashore.

Avinash Lad, former corporator of the area, said, “Due to the lack of indoor sports complexes in Navi Mumbai, our youth have to travel to Mumbai. We had been raising this matter for the past several years and NMMC finally approved the proposal in 2018. So, even as small in size, this is the first indoor sports complex developed by the NMMC. Sadly, they took no effort to open it in the last one year.”

According to the officials, the size of the entire ground is 11,891sqm. Of this, they used 1,577sqm of land for this complex. The rest of the ground has been reserved for outdoor games like cricket, football and handball.

Manish Bhoir, an activist and sports enthusiast from Vashi, said, “After the second lockdown, NMMC opened all parks, gardens and gymnasiums. Even the private clubs and other institutes are now continuing with their routine affairs. Why can’t NMMC open this indoor sports complex for us?”

Manoj Mahale, deputy municipal commissioner of NMMC (sports), said, “Even as we developed this complex keeping in mind different indoor games, our priority was to promote billiards through it. At present, we don’t have anyone who can train the visitors on that game. We are in the process of hiring coaches and as soon as we do that, the complex will be opened. It may take us one more month to finish the process of hiring.”