More than a dozen national and international archers of Dhanbad, who rejoiced at the achievement of state archers Deepaika Kumari, Komalika Bari and Ankita Bhakat in the world cup stage III at Paris, rued over the lack of facilities for training and equipments in the coal town.

Talking to The Telegraph Online on Monday, 23-year-old Sulekha Singh, an international level archer of Mahuda Bazar of Dhanad who represented India in 2013 Archery World Cadet Championship in China said,“We are happy at our state players achievement but at the same time want to draw the attention of the government to the plight of Dhanbad archers.”

Sulekha helped the Indian team qualify for the 2014 Youth Olympic.

“We don’t even have bows and arrows for practice and consequently I am compelled to carry out training at Dumka Archery Academy as a cadet which is closed since last year due to the pandemic and thus seating idle at home” said Singh whose father owns a road side tea shop in Mahuda.

Sulekha also worked at Kasturba Gandhi Balika Mahvidyalaya Govindur as a coach to support the family income in 2016.
Sulekha started her archery career with selection at Tata Feeder Centre at Jamadoba and later got selected for Tata Archery Academy in 2011 where she practiced along with Deepika Kumari.

“If I had the facility of any bow for our practice being there I would not have been required to stay at Dumka for training,” she said.

Naziya Parween (21) a national level archer of Dhanbad who also represented the state in National archery championship in 2015 and won silver medal for the state said, “Belonging to an extremely poor family background I always struggled for recurve of compound bow for carrying practice and compelled to practice with a broken bow of my own.”

Naziya who underwent training at Tata Feeder Centre of Digwadih and was attached with centre till the temporary suspension of training since March 2020 said, “As the centre is closed due covid constraint I am compelled to help my father at his road side show shop as all promises of job by several politicians and other proved hollow.”

Md Shamshad, a Dhanbad based archery coach who himself is an award winning player, said, “I trained more than a dozen Dhanbad archers at Tata Feeder Centre at Digwadih stadium since 2009, many of whom represented the state and nation at national and international level competitions but all of them are deprived of equipments and many talented players are still deprived of job.”

“We can’t understand that why an archery academy cannot be set up in Dhanbad which has so many talented archers, while the same can be set up in places like Silli and Dumka besides Ranchi and Jamshedpur,” said Shamshad who is also joint secretary of Dhanbad Archery Association.