Hyderabad: There is no dearth of sporting talent in rural Telangana. Young boys and girls have been increasingly showing a great interest in sports at all levels. However, due to lack of equipment, funding, and training facilities in the rural areas, the full potential of these sportspersons has not been harnessed. An initiative by a middle-aged woman in Wanaparthy district is about to change that.
Padmaja Desai, whose maternal native village is Mulamalla in Athmakur mandal in Wanaparthy district, is presently on a mission — to prepare athletes from her village to play national and international tourneys in kabaddi, kho-kho and volleyball.
“Due to the rising interest in Kabaddi, every village now has a Kabaddi team. The interest in Kabaddi has been spiked among the children and youth much before the Covid-19 pandemic. They have been practicing Kabaddi in a small open space in the government school’s premises. To encourage the players, I gave two acres of land for them to practice and to hold inter-district and inter-state tournaments,” she tells Siasat.com.
That one push has brought about a transformational change in the Kabaddi team of Mulamalla.
Though the land came free, it was barren and needed to be prepared for a Kabaddi court. According to Padmaja, the team which has won several tournaments, has used its prize money to develop that land into a court, where the children and youth in he village gather every evening and get trained in sports like kabaddi, kho-kho and volleyball. Even those operating the machinery didn’t charge for labour and tariff to prepare the land (except for fuel).
The Mulamalla Kabaddi Association was registered under the Telangana Societies Registration Act.
As the ground took a form, tournaments started being held there. Padmaja tells Siasat.com that once in every 15-30 days inter-state and inter-district level tournaments are held in this ground, with around 60 kabaddi teams which have participated during the last one and a half years.
Interestingly, even the selections for junior and sub-junior level competitions by the sports department were also done here, with around 150 boys and girls going though the selection process in this ground.
“It was a day-long event and it happened in the open ground, where there were no toilets, and the participants had to go to defecate. That was when I realised that there was a need to build a few toilets and a structure which they could use as a dormitory, dining room and also play on the synthetic mats as per the international standards,” she recalls.
Then came the idea of building a training center with two international standard kabaddi courts, a volleyball court, a fully equipped gymnasium and fitness center, locker rooms, showers and storage facilities, and a medical room for injury treatment and prevention, in addition to making more facilities available for the players.
She started by donating Rs 2 lakh from her savings. During her trip to the US, she was able to get more donors, and is currently trying to raise anywhere between Rs 40 lakh and Rs 1 crore based on what her structural engineer would estimate for the facility.
Chandrashekhar Goud, one of the Mulamalla Kabaddi players, is presently working in the Telangana police’s security intelligence. Another player has represented the State in the juniors nationals, and has won a gold medal for being the ‘best rider’ in the competition. K Dinakar, another player, is now getting trained at Gachibowli stadium through the Sports Authority of India, and is representing the Under-19 team from Telangana in the nationals.
Presently there is a 20-member kabaddi team in Mulamalla categorised into super-seniors and sub-juniors, and two female kabaddi players. Padmaja hopes to see more female and male players emerging as kabaddi, volleyball and kho-kho players not only from Mulamalla, but from 8-9 villages in Athmakur and Amarchinta mandals, availing the facilities in her dream stadium project.
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