Union Minister of sports and Youth Affairs Anurag Thakur, during his campaign in Siliguri on Monday for the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate, contesting in the forthcoming M P election, made promises to Siliguri’s sports fraternity to develop the infrastructure. 

Requests from the local MLA of BJP Shankar Ghosh and the city's few other sports administrators and personalities, present at a function were made to Anurag Thakur. 

Amit Dam, the former national table tennis coach and also Kriraguru awardee from the state government who presented a memento to the Union sports minister revealed, “Requests for the introduction of a modern cricket and football stadium with synthetic athletics turfs, a modern table tennis academy and a Khelo India centre in Siliguri were made to the Union sports minister."

Dam continued, "Union minister also looked considerate and promised of all these demands. He hinted that the infrastructure must have to be developed as the central government has planned to bid for the staging of the Olympics in 2036.” 

Siliguri does not have yet any stadium ground except Kanchenjunga Stadium. Football and cricket as well as the festivals and political meetings also take place on this ground. Cricket sometimes is played at North Bengal University campus ground. The political meetings and other festivals often damage the ground and Siliguri Premier football league is often hampered as the ground is smashed up after the meetings and festivals.

Amit Dam is the founder of Siliguri Table Tennis Academy which is one of North Bengal’s leading table tennis schools. It has been nurturing and producing paddlers of national and international standards for 30 years.

Presently, the academy has 137 students from the age group of five years to 22 years. The three-storied building is also equipped with modern training infrastructure including four robot machines.

Dam informed, "We bought the last robot machine around in July last year. It cost more than Rs 1 lakh and it consisted of a variety of functions. Someone needs the training to use this robot machine. It is helping the paddlers to adopt variety and new styles as well as speed and reflex.”

Under the guidance of Amit Dam, a couple of paddlers like Pratiti Pal (under 13) and Debraj Bhattacharya (under 15) shined at the national level last year.