14th Nehru Champions College Hockey Tournament starts Feb 8

New Delhi, Feb 6 (UNI) Title holders Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Jamia Milia Islamia, Delhi) and seven-time champions DAV College, Jalandhar will be the top contenders in the 14th SAIL-Nehru Champions College Hockey Tournament starting February 8 at the Shivaji Stadium here.

The week-long tournament has a prize money of 2.28 lakhs at stake and will see participation from 12 top colleges from four zones, with the winners's share being Rs 96,000, organisers of the event, Jawaharlal Hockey Tournament Society (JHTS) told reporters here today.

Four teams -- Municipal College (Rourkela), Kirori Mal College (Delhi), Gurukul Kangri University (Haridwar), Surana College (Bangalore) -- have been put on stand by to cop with any last-minute pullouts.

The number of partcipants is down from the traditional 16 teams to 12 and the JHTS members blamed the lack of sponsors for the situation. The Society members said the decreased participation was a refelection of hockey's pathetic state in the country.

Association of Indian Universities, which organises the event jointly with the JHTS, also felt that a herculean effort was required to lift the game's sagging fortunes both at the domestic as well as the international level.

''Organising this tournament is a costly affair and the number of partcipants is down because of the scarcity of funds. The moment hockey's fortunes improve the participation will increase,'' AIU representative Gurdeep Singh said while responding to a query.

Meanwhile, the JHTS is planning to take the tournament outside Delhi for the first time since it's inception. The society's Secretary and Joint Convener Shiv Kumar Varma said the event may be held in Srinagar next year as requested by some universities in the valley.

Participating teams: North Zone: DAV College (Jalandhar), Govt. Mahindra College (Patiala), Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (Delhi) South Zone: Pachaiyappa College (Chennai), Faculty of Arts and Education (Tamil Nadu), Bhagwan mahaveer Jain College (Bangalore) West Zone: Jawaharlal Nehru College (Bhopal), Rajasthan college (Jaipur), TS College (Khadki) East Zone: Faculty of Arts (Varanasi), Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences (Varanasi), faculty of Education (Gorakhpur) UNI