The Scholars’ Avenue sat down with Akash Bhardwaj and Piyush Agrawal, the General Secretaries of Sports and Games Committee for the academic year 2018–19, to interview them about their tenure. Here’s what they had to say.
We’ll go over their proposals first in an enumerative fashion and subsequently follow that up with general questions and their final remarks on their term.
Proposal 1: To reform the current system of NSO for the betterment of the sporting fraternity
NSO re-trials were actively conducted last semester which allowed students to change their NSO activities/sports to ones they were interested in. These NSO re-trials weren’t limited to second-year students but were also open to senior students who had backlogs. Consequently, around ninety students were successfully able to change their EAA, either from H&F to Sports and Games or from one sport to another.
The other proposal on intra NSO matches was left primarily to the PTIs and the onus was on them to see it to completion (“I can, however, attest to the successful conduction of these matches”- Akash ). In addition to this, the attendance records of NSO were meticulously maintained and coordinated with the concerned PTI’s.
Proposal 2: To introduce various methods to increase awareness about sports, such as digital display boards for achievers, E-newsletters, screening of live international matches etc.
A. Display board
There happen to be no specific budget allocations for a General Secretary and every budgetary proposal thus has to trudge through government pipelines. At present, the consensus has been to acquire an LED TV instead of a display board so as to address the short term needs of the Gymkhana. Approvals in this regard have already been obtained and the bid currently resides with the Government E-Procurement Portal (which is a transparent government portal for purchasing such goods). This should tentatively be up and running by July. That being said, they stressed on the fact that they haven’t washed their hands off the display board and have submitted proposals requesting procurement before the Inter IIT Sports Meet.
B. E-Newsletter
The first edition of the sports E-newsletter, Sankalp, was released on Sports day in August and is the only one to have been released so far. They have decided to do away with the ‘three newsletters a semester’ model following suggestions from higher authorities, who encouraged them to limit Sankalp to one issue a semester (the spring edition of the newsletter will be released on the 24th of March). This deviation from the proposed plan of action occurred because they realized that the resources invested in bringing out the newsletter could be better used elsewhere (like the alumni portal for the sports community, something that didn’t feature in their original proposal, but was worked upon by their immediate predecessors as evident from our last year’s interaction with the then incumbent G.Secs, Manish and Harsh ). The primary goal of the newsletter, which was to improve awareness, was achieved through the Facebook page, as evident from the fact that IIT KGP’s sports page surpassed those of other IITs in terms of content and reach last year.
Proposal 3: To change the current system of documentation of records by digitizing of Gymkhana records
They have successfully managed to move a majority of the Gymkhana records, including financial documents and minutes of various meetings to a digital platform. Use of note sheets (which weren’t extensively used last year) are being encouraged this year. There has thus been an overall increase in orderliness and transparency, which has largely reduced the end-of-term hassle before the audit. The procedure for Government procurement has also been vastly simplified.
Proposal 4: To increase student participation in sports and games via recreational activities and obstacle courses
The original plan was to construct an obstacle course in the area surrounding Jnan Ghosh Stadium. The construction of the synthetic track for the Inter IIT meet, however, has complicated things, rendering it difficult for them to proceed with the proposal. Moreover, the administration is apprehensive about recurring maintenance charges likely to be incurred as a result of this and thus has suggested setting up fitness instruments and changing rooms in the stadium instead. A consensus is that obstacle courses and fitness equipment are not really the same, as the former would have largely helped army/police aspirants. However, the file for the proposal has been frozen and they couldn’t really give any assurances regarding its implementation.
What about the other recreational activities proposed, like boxing and foosball?
They had organized multiple events to improve bonding among teammates, some of which were attended by the DOSA and President, TSG. While the marathon activities that they’d proposed are in full swing, they have only been successful in getting rooms allotted for boxing and foosball in the indoor stadium. The administration is apprehensive about combat sports owing to the scope of mismanagement and dearth of competent training professionals. For the same reason, activities like dance, painting and music haven’t been included in EAA yet
Proposal 5: Organizing a separate seminar and workshop-cum tournament for PG/RS students. Schedule extra Inter-IIT practice sessions during preferred time slots for such students.
The PG/RS students have hectic academic schedules and typically prefer the morning slots for practice. This has been facilitated wherever possible (via consultation with coaches and senior players), except in team sports where it makes little sense for an individual to train independent of his/her team. Eighteen post-graduate students participated in the Inter IIT meet this year and credit goes to the G.Secs and their proposals for playing a major role in facilitating this.
In addition to this, they conducted two introductory seminars at SNVH and RLB since a preliminary survey revealed that post-graduate females were less aware of sporting opportunities on campus as compared to their male counterparts. The GSecs of male PG halls were also requested to maintain correspondence with male boarders to ensure smooth transfer of information.
Proposal 6: To improve the performance of inter IIT sports contingent by creating a database for all inter IIT players that contains information about their past injuries. Arrange for recruitment of a physiotherapist during the inter IIT camp and ensure regular checkups
They had initiated the central purchase of medical kits this year and ensured that they were delivered to the athletes well before the Inter IIT meet. As promised, a sports physiotherapist was also hired for the duration of the meet after much scouting in Kolkata and Ranchi. This was found to have had a positive impact on the players (as evident from post-meet surveys) and has also paved the path for the recruitment of two additional male and female therapists. The budget allocated by the Gymkhana was lesser this year and they were extremely happy to have been able to achieve so much, given their limited resources.
Database
A form was drafted with the help of the BC Roy staff and the physiotherapists to aid the creation of the database. Currently, the database has been compiled and is functional.
How was the response of the Gymkhana Administration towards new initiatives?
The Gymkhana along with all it’s heading authorities were always very cooperative and sympathetic of their problems. At times, the Gymkhana’s top priority may not necessarily have been the same as theirs, but again, issues that were really important to them may not really be that important to the Gymkhana. After being a part of the administration one realizes that the proposal one has put forward may be implemented in multiple ways or discovers better alternatives to it and hence complies to it. So, basically, “You need to perform a situational analysis and do your best” is their piece of advice to the future G.Secs
Q) Were there some initiatives or proposals that you did not mention but implemented?
An intra hall competition for girls was arranged for in addition to other affirmative measures such as a freshers’ tournament and a separate football GC. They also collaborated with ‘Dribl’ during the FIFA World Cup and conducted an online competition. Guest lectures from prominent sportsmen, such as chess grand master Surya Shekhar Ganguly were arranged for. Moreover, an entire gym slot was reserved for the Inter IIT players in the Spring Semester to ensure adequate off-season training.
They have also initiated the Central Procurement of Materials, which was not in practice earlier (i.e. instead of the procurement taking place via different sub-committees they plan to do it on a central basis). Moreover, the refreshments for Inter IIT sports contingent was increased to 1.5 times within the same budget and the menu was changed to provide a more balanced, nutritional diet for the athletes. The quality of the medals and prizes given by the Gymkhana has improved too.
Q) What is something that you wanted to accomplish, but couldn’t?
Summer camp could have been more effectively organized if the budget was approved. The problem mostly was because their tenure had started on 13th April after the budget for sports and games had already been approved. Shortly after this, the inevitable end semester exams started. They’d immediately started to work on this plan and but in such a short amount of time this could not be done because they needed at least 21 days to file a tender which sadly was not available to them at that time. They did forward an application to higher authorities but they couldn’t get it approved in time. But this year, they have started the procedure already, ie, they’d initiated this by January and got this approved by 22nd March. So IIT- KGP is going to have its first full-fledged summer camp of 20 days this year.
Q) Do you consider that your proposals were slightly over ambitious?
Piyush was a member of the Sports and Games Committee even before and at that time believed that these type of proposals can be implemented based on his knowledge and with consultation from seniors. But when he got into the system, he found out that there are some issues which required more dedicated time and it was not just about completing his proposals. The results are of course seen after a period of time, for example, the display board took way more time than he expected but he was sure that it shall be implemented in the upcoming year. There are a lot of things which can’t be implemented in one year alone but if somebody feels that including a particular point in the proposal shall have a positive effect irrespective of the duration it takes to achieve it, then it must be included was what they had to say. Also, initiation takes much more effort than continuing and they assured that they(Sports and Games Committee) have taken a lot of effort to initiate a lot of productive things. The player of the month was an initiative by their ex-GSecs and they have continued it well so far. Summer camp was a proposal by Mr. Manish Datta and even that is being continued.
Q: Do you have any advice for the upcoming GSecs and in general, for KGP as well?
For the GSecs, their advice was to include proposals other than those which shall be completed in their G.Sec tenure alone (like the summer camp, which is more of a visionary proposal). When initiated for the first time, people may not be too interested, but over time it becomes a part of KGP culture.
They also claim to have put in a lot of effort year around to get work done in Gymkhana and request the general public not to just criticize them on their progress with their proposals but also look at all the other initiatives that they have brought in.
Q: You guys have worked together for a year now. Starting with Piyush, what do you think is the strongest point in Akash?
Piyush: He(Akash) can defend himself and his debating skills are much better than mine. Hence he was my first line of defence. Since our job is to convince the administration, the onus was on him to see to it while I handled PR. We sort of complete each other.
Akash: I was moving around fighting and all.
TSA: So you mean like the good cop, bad cop routine.
Both: Yes the good cop, bad cop thing! (chuckles).
Akash: About Piyush, I would say that his hard working ability and faithfulness works in his favour.
That brings us to the end of our interaction session with the current G.Secs Sports. We are to host this year’s Inter IIT Sports Meet and the pressure is on the current candidates to pull it off successfully, which in team TSA’s opinion seems possible, thanks to the efforts of not just them, but the cumulative efforts of multiple G.Secs over the years and we would like to extend our hearty gratitude for their service and contributions to IIT KGP’s community and sporting culture.