The iconic Jawahar Lal Nehru Stadium in the national capital will be “dismantled” to create a Sports City which will cater to all major disciplines and include lodging facility for athletes.

The 102-acre area of the stadium will be rebuilt, but since this proposal is yet to be approved, the timeline for the project and the estimated cost has not yet been worked out.

“The stadium will be dismantled. All offices inside the stadium, including the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), the National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) and the Income Tax department will be relocated as and when the project takes off,” a sports ministry official said.

“Currently, the land is not being used to its optimal level. A Sports City will ensure that we have hosting facilities for major disciplines, training facilities and lodging for athletes when they compete there, and even verticals like entertainment will be covered,” he said.

The stadium also houses the headquarters of the Sports Authority of India, which owns the venue, and the government’s flagship Khelo India project office. A Sports City project would require synergy between multiple ministries, including the Urban Development Ministry and departments.

“It is an idea at this stage, but let’s see how the feasibility study works out. But the ministry is very serious about going ahead with it,” the official said.

Sports cities in Qatar and Australia are being assessed to finalise the modalities. Union Sports Minister Mansukh Mandaviya was in Doha recently, and it is learnt that he visited the Sports City there. The Doha Sports City is spread over 617 acres. It has facilities for football, aquatics and 13 different indoor sports, besides an academy. It also houses a specialised orthopaedic and sports medicine hospital.

Australia’s multi-purpose facilities include the Docklands Stadium in Melbourne which can host cricket, Australian rules football, rugby, cricket and soccer.

Ahmedabad’s Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Sports Complex is an example closer home, having facilities for cricket, aquatics, tennis and athletics, among others. It is spread over 250 acres and was built at a cost of Rs 4,600 crore. Ahmedabad is currently bidding to host the 2036 Olympic Games and is set to be awarded the 2030 Commonwealth Games later this month.

“The JLN project will also be big in scale. This project will ensure that existing infrastructure, which was crumbling inside JLN, gets rebuilt,” the official said.

The JLN Stadium was built in 1982 for the Asian Games held that year. It later hosted the 2010 Commonwealth Games, for which it was refurbished at a cost over Rs 900 crore. It recently hosted the World Para-Athletics Championship, for which it underwent another facelift.

Besides being a prime athletics venue, the stadium has a football pitch where national and international-level games have been held. It has hosted a couple of cricket ODIs as well in 1984 and 1991 before the ICC found it unsuitable for the sport due to technical reasons. The stadium is used for non-sporting commercial activities too with concerts by Indian and international singers held here regularly.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI) had recently hiked the booking price for such events and introduced a clause for penalties if the stadium was not handed back to it in good condition at the conclusion of such programmes.

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