Sport
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Shooting
European tour doubtful
NEW DELHI, JAN. 1. The plan of the National Rifle Association of India (NRAI) to send a 24-member shooting squad for nine matches in three countries in Europe spanning three weeks, hangs in fire, for paucity of funds. The government has said that it has exhausted all the money and that the NRAI may go ahead and send the squad to competitions in Germany, Denmark and Holland, if it was willing to wait for the reimbursement after a few months.
On its part, the NRAI has stated that it was also facing a cash crunch, especially as that the government already owes it more than 40 lakhs in reimbursements on various counts.
The secretary of NRAI, Mr. Baljit Singh Sethi, has said that he would consult the national coach Prof. Sunny Thomas, and perhaps ask the shooters whether they would bear the cost and wait for the reimbursement. Even sending a pruned 12-member squad with three coaches may cost about 18 lakhs or so, and thus the NRAI may eventually be forced to shelve the idea of sending a team to Europe, if very few shooters offer to foot their bill. Abhinav Bindra, however, will go ahead with his programme of competing in Europe in preparation for the World Cups, World Championship apart from the Commonwealth and Asian Games.
Abhinav's father, Dr. A.S. Bindra, has said that he would meet the sports minister Ms. Uma Bharati, to sort out the financial problem, as the government had committed support to the ace shooter, following his brilliant run last season.
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