Chief Minister of Odisha inaugurates new building of Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre in Bhubaneswar

Bhubaneswar: Shri Naveen Patnaik, Hon’ble Chief Minister of Odisha, inaugurated the new state-of-the-art building of the Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre (ONTHPC) at the Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar. The new building is equipped with a gym, smart classrooms, dining facility, physiotherapy room, office space, and more.

Dignitaries who attended the ceremony included Shri Tusharkanti Behera, Hon’ble Minister, Electronics & Information Technology, Sports & Youth Services, Government of Odisha, Shri V. K. Pandian, IAS, Private Secretary to CM & Secretary to CM-Transformational Initiatives (5T), Shri R Vineel Krishna, IAS, Secretary to Government, Sports & Youth Services Department, Government of Odisha, Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel, Debashis Jena, Chief Resident Executive of Tata Steel in Bhubaneswar and Rajiv Seth, Project Director, ONTHPC. The Secretary General of Hockey India, Shri Bholanath Singh and Executive Director, Cdr. R K Srivastav were also present at the event.

Speaking on the new hockey high performance centre, Chief Minister said , “We are extremely happy on our partnership with the Tata Group for hockey development at HPC and even grassroots centers.
This will help nurture talent and contribute towards producing elite players for the national teams. We have now developed a more open and holistic sports ecosystem with excellent and modern infrastructure with an aim of helping athletes in achieving sporting excellence.”

Chanakya Chaudhary, Vice President, Corporate Services, Tata Steel said, “Tata Steel is proud to be associated with the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre. We are grateful to the Government of Odisha for their support and guidance in establishing this centre as one of the leading High Performance Centres in the country. We are very happy to share that the center has already started yielding good results. Senior International Women’s team player, Jyoti Chattri, and five players who have recently made their junior International debut, are proud cadets of this HPC.”

The new building at the Odisha Naval Tata Hockey High Performance Centre (HPC) is currently home to 90 cadets, consisting of an equal number of boys and girls, who were selected from state and national talent pools. These young athletes are provided with top-notch facilities and training to help them excel at the international level. The Government of Odisha has provided the infrastructure for the centre, which is managed by the ONTHPC.

In addition to its role as a high-performance training centre, the HPC also oversees the grassroots hockey programme in 9 districts of Odisha, with 25 operational grassroots centres, including 20 centres run by the state government. The ONTH (HPC) was inaugurated on August 13, 2019, by Hon’ble Chief Minister Shri Naveen Patnaik and T V Narendran, Managing Director and CEO, Tata Steel, along with other dignitaries. The establishment of the HPC is a collaborative effort between the Government of Odisha, Tata Steel, and Tata Trust.