Manifesto Review: Sports Secretary — Mithun Joy Cherayil

The colour scheme works like this:

• Green – completed already.

• Orange – will most likely be completed before end of tenure.

• Red – not completed, or left to future Secretaries.

Mithun Joy Cherayil was elected unopposed to the post of Institute Sports Secretary for the academic year 2013-14. Mithun has been involved in sports and Inter-IIT right from his first year, and served as Tapti Hostel’s Sports Secretary in his third year before deciding to contest for the institute-wide post.

Mithun has managed an overall success rate of 24.1% with respect to the points on his manifesto, while 37.9% of the points are likely to be brought to completion during his tenure. Note that, six points in the latter category (which makes 20.8% of the total) are, by definition, slated for the Gymkhana Day to be held later this semester, and thus it is difficult to evaluate them at this stage.

The introduction of the Sports Premier League, the addition of Squash to NSO and the organisation of an open tennis-ball cricket tournament at Sangam have, among others, been the highlights of his tenure. Inter-IIT 2013 saw IIT Madras put up a good show overall, with the men’s team finishing runners up for the men’s General Championship, and the women’s team finishing fourth overall, an improvement last year’s seventh-place finish.

Initiatives

• Sports Premier League (SPL) spread throughout the even semester

The launching of the Sports Premier League is seen as a significant step this year. Conducted so far across five sports during the weekends, the SPL is seen as a way to keep the Institute teams in touch with and encourage budding players, separately from Schroeter. As of the compilation of this review, four teams have emerged which are significantly stronger than hostel teams. However, a bottleneck is the lack of enthusiasm on long weekends which could lead to a shortened version.

• Introduction of a Students Mentoring Committee, comprising of institute team players to train beginners in various sports
• Inter IIT orientation session for freshies in OAT

Both a Students Mentoring Committee (wherein a senior member of the team guides a group of 10-15 enthusiastic freshers) and other various Inter-IIT orientations failed to take place owing to infrastructural issues. The idea in essence, seems to be superfluous. Given the existence of NSO, a trained and dedicated professional is likely to help young athletes better than their seniors could. The orientation which could have been a remarkable motivator for freshers couldn’t be conducted due to the unavailability of venues (CLT/OAT) during the early half of the odd semester.

•  Introduction of an online portal for Chess with institute rankings 

Implementing this before the end of this academic year will be very difficult for the webops team, and seems unlikely to happen. Although the Secy is optimistic, progress on this has been limited and no official word is out.

• Open tennis ball cricket tournament in Sangam
• Conducting a slam dunk competition following GF & KR tournament
• Introduction of NSO Squash

These have been the highlights of Mithun’s tenure, with all of them being success stories. He also adds, “This year’s GF & KR tournament set a benchmark for how each sport should be treated, with respect to the standard of teams that need to be called. It shouldn’t matter if we win or lose, the exposure to such quality will motivate us to work harder.”

• Distant markers for jogging tracks in Institute
• Introduction of the Runners & Skating Clubs 

Mithun tells us that these will be incorporated with the launch of the skating rink in Sangam, which is currently under construction.

• Re-introduction of Sports EML in coordination with EML core and Institute General Secretary. 

This couldn’t be done, owing to the vast number of speakers already being roped in by the EML team. A major cause for this was the lack of coordination between the EML team and the Sports Sec.

• Inclusion of Sports calendar, player profiles & Schroeter tally in the Sports Website

The website is up and running, and currently features the calendar and space for player profiles and the Schroeter results. Schroeter results, however, have not been regularly updated; player profiles are also yet to be filled.

• Conducting camps throughout the year for racquet sports

While the camps were not conducted throughout the year, a racquet sports camp is set to be launched between 15th and the 29th of March.

Infrastructure

• Renovation of the skating rink around Sangam
• Relaying of hockey & football fields
• Renovation of Athletics Stadium
• Patch works for the tennis practice wall
• Construction of a practice wall for volleyball
• Installing synthetic surface on basketball courts

The points related to infrastructure have all involved considerable delays when it comes to implementation. The delay in relaying Sangam as a skating rink was due to the valid issue raised by members of Prakriti, concerning grazing habitat of deer and bucks. For the reader’s information, once proposals are made by the Secretary, they must be approved by the Dean, and passed again through a net of scrutiny by the members of Prakriti before any action may be taken by the Engineering Unit. Given that we are at the limit of usable area ( ~33%) it is very unlikely that we will see newer fields. As far as the stadium is concerned, the top soil for grass is being laid and the levelling process was held up due to rains. Relaying of the football and hockey grounds was passed by the Dean; however the Engineering Unit had its hands full with other activities, making it impossible to complete the relaying before Schroeter.

Sharav and Sarayu + PG

• Organize a beginners camp for all the games

In coordination with the Hostel Secretaries, camps for all sports were organised for the Sharav and Sarayu teams. An immediate impact was seen, for example, in the football Schroeter, with Sharav scoring 4 goals in the two games they played.

• Introduction of Fitness club*
• Introduction of ‘Miss sports freshie’ of the year*

Both of these points are slated to happen on Gymkhana Day.

• Female gym instructor to mentor gym sessions for girls PG SPORTS

While it was included in the original manifesto, Mithun feels, in retrospect, that it is unnecessary, because a lot of frequent female gym-goers have assured him that they are perfectly comfortable with a male instructor.

• Registration of PG cricket & football teams in SportsFest

To increase PG involvement, special slots were reserved for PG students, and an improvement has been seen this year in the number of PG students representing the Institute. However, owing to their rather involved research schedule, the PG students weren’t able to take part in this years’ Sportsfest.

• Introduction of ‘PG Sportsperson’ of the year*

This will be announced on Gymkhana Day.

 Miscellaneous

• Inter IIT medal redistribution during gymkhana day*
• Distribution of Mementos to final year Inter IIT players*

“The idea as far as these are concerned is to bring about a genuine sense of awe about Inter-IIT, and to bring back the energy and the joy when these medals are won,” says Mithun. While this may be honorable, given the fact that Gymkhana day is already the day for Schroeter medal distribution, these added distributions could end up prolonging the wait.

• Footer field in the space opposite to Mahanadi
• Propose to construct a Cricket pitch in front of Sindhu Hostel

Both these projects have been approved by the Dean, but Prakriti is yet to grant leave for the construction to begin. However, Mithun admits that these look unlikely.

• Publish an Annual Sports Magazine with details of Schroeter & Inter IIT*

This will be brought out on Gymkhana Day.

Note: The 6 points marked with a * are, by definition, set to happen on Gymkhana day, and therefore cannot be evaluated at present. If they are all completed as planned, Mithun’s completion percentage would be greater than 40%.

You can find all the manifesto reviews here.

The Fifth Estate