Bihar adjudged the best

 

 

The annual general meeting of the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI), held on March 9, 2014, saw representatives from all state and institutional units attending the AGM where matters relating to the promotion of table tennis in the country were discussed.

 

The important decisions that came for discussion included the confirmation of allotment of this season’s Senior Nationals to Pudhucherry besides Alleppey getting the Youth and Junior nationals while Andhra Pradesh opting to host the sub-junior and cadet events. However, Andhra will have to decide about the exact venue for the event in the state soon.

 

 

 

The AGM also was grateful the Airports Authority of India (AAI) for agreeing to host the Inter-Institutional TT, which is the season opener, in August. The AAI will decide about the venue soon.

 

Of course, several other matters came up for discussion, which included selection of teams for the World TT, camps for the CWG (Glasgow) and the Asian Games (Incheon) to be held later this year. The various committees of the TTFI met during the AGM separately to chalk out the plans to prepare our paddlers for the entire season, most importantly for the two major Games this year.

 

There were discussions about the veteran events with the AGM unanimously passing a resolution about the conduct of veteran events in the country. As per the decision, all such events have to be necessarily conducted under the aegis of the TTFI, the one and only authorized body to sanction the events. Even for state events, the organizers have to have the approval of the state affiliates of the TTFI. There were suggestions to separate the team and individual events to manage things easily for the organizers and the TTFI agreed to look into it.

 

President P.C. Chaturvedi also emphasized on the need to set up a committee to hear harassment cases and redress issues relating to them as per government guidelines. Such a committee with five members-Indu Puri as the chairperson-Mantu Ghosh and Rinku Acharya being the other to women-and two men was formed.

 

After a briefing by secretary general Dhanraj Choudhary on the age-fraud cases, the TTFI’s disciplinary committee with SM Sultan as the chairman informed the house about the ways and means to address the menace. The committee, Sultan said, was forming fresh guidelines to tackle the issue while specifying the preamble. It was agreed that all those who want to pursue table tennis must register with the authorities concerned within three months of their birth to be eligible to play.

 

The committee also set out specifications to deal with issues at the source-the state units were asked to follow the TTFI guidelines in order to arrest the problem at the root itself. It was generally agreed that it was incumbent upon the states to deal with the issue at their level to curb such menace which is on the increase. It was also suggested that states that are not taking strict action or not acting as per TTFI guidelines should also be penalized in some way.

 

 

 

The disciplinary committee will soon come up with directives to be followed by all states with regard to age-proof of paddlers besides the TTFI itself conducing/organizing camps where age-proof verification will be done. Wherever there is a doubt about a particular player or set of players, they will be subjected to medical tests.

 

At the end of the AGM, those who set new standards for organizing national/zonal events were honoured. The Bihar unit, which held the Platinum Jubilee senior nationals at Patna, was adjudged the best and its secretary-general Mukesh Roy received the trophy for a great show. Similarly, Siliguri was voted the best organizer of the zonal event (East Zone National Ranking TT) and Mantu Ghosh received the trophy.

 

Vivek Kholi of Stag International was presented with the trophy for untiringly rendering service to promote the sport throughout the year by providing equipment support. The PSPB, Airports Authority of India (AAI), the Audit and the Railways were honoured for being the best institutions promoting the cause of table tennis in their own humble way.