Ministry orders shooting retrials ahead of meet

The matter came up for discussion during the steering committee meeting on January 2,with everyone except the NRAI representatives agreeing that the three shooters could not be dropped simply because of not participating in the trials in Patiala last month,the reason given by the NRAI for excluding the three.

On Wednesday,the ministry ordered the NRAI to conduct retrials in Pune during the shotgun camp that is expected to begin from January 12.

The ministry’s decision has also been prompted by the fact that over half a dozen shooters had walked out of the Patiala trials because of erratic clay target-throwing machines and poor infrastructure,a complaint sources say the ministry found merit in after verification.

Bindra,along with a few other top shooters,had earlier been omitted from the core group for the Commonwealth Games. Subsequent ministry intervention saw them getting included.

Meagre haul

The 150-strong core group has only managed a meagre number of medals in more than half a dozen international meets between September 2008 and August 2009. Even among the 40-odd shooters earlier named for the Commonwealth Championship,only Heena Sidhu,Vijay Kumar,Gagan Narang and Manavjit Sandhu have won medals in the past year.

The ministry is also planning to prune the list of the core group of shooters to 100 because of the expenses. The average bill for a shooter at the Commonwealth Games camp comes to Rs 1,000 per day for boarding and lodging. Additionally,there is a minimum air fare of Rs 10,000 per shooter,with at least six round trips in a year. These expenses are generally for the 305 days of camp that the ministry guarantess per player in a year.

Only 28 shooters will finally qualify for the Commonwealth Games.