A press conference was held at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on 30th August 2012 to announce the second edition of the Delhi Corporate Games between 22nd and 25th November 2012.
The Corporate Games have been created to provide employees at all levels of businesses and organizations in all industry sectors a chance to experience the thrill and excitement of participating in a multi-disciplinary sports festival. Corporate Games have been staged annually in 53 cities of 25 countries.
The second edition of the corporate games will be held during November 22nd-25th this year at Siri Fort Sports Complex (Badminton, Basketball, Billiards, Chess, Cricket (8-a-side), Hockey, Soccer, Golf, Squash, Table Tennis and Tennis) and at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium (Running, Soccer, Cycling). More than 1100 corporate employees from 60 corporates & public sector undertakings, as well as members of the Sirifort Sports complex and Vasant Kunj Sports Complex will be competing in these games.
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Mr. OP Bhatia, CEO, Delhi Corporate Games, informed the press that Shri Ajay Maken ,Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, had consented to be Games Patron (India) of the Corporate Games. The minister will inaugurate the games on 22nd November 2012 evening at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium.
Corporate Games CEO Mr. O.P. Bhatia said in addition to participants from the first games, there was interest from organizations like ONGC, HDFC Mumbai, HDFC Delhi, HCL Technologies, SERCO, Tata Power, GE (Energy), Barclays Bank, Barista Limited, Tata Sky, Silver Skills, PWC, ARI, Arcelor Mittal, Genpact, Apollo Munich, SPML, Jet Airways, Hughes Systique India Pvt. Ltd., Firefox, NTPC, Sirifort Sports Complex to participate in the Games. Dialogue is ongoing with another 30 organizations for participation.
Bhatia added that the biggest advantage of the Corporate Games was that it organized competitions in age-groups of 19-29, 30-39, 40-49, as well as 50 and above. Corporate Games follow rules of international sports federations, with some modifications to make the games more interesting and to finish the games in 3-4 days. The cricket event is to be played by 8-member team, with 3 on the bench for rolling substitution, while each innings will be 10 overs. Similarly, football will be played in two halves of 30 minutes each, and all age-groups will be mixed in the team games. In the Corporate Games, medals are awarded to winners whereas points are given from first to eighth position. These points are then added to give a special trophy known as a Medalist Award to the corporate getting maximum points. This encourages the senior management of corporates to train their players to win maximum medals. Another trophy known as the Sports for Life trophy is given to the company fielding maximum number of sports persons.
Mr. K.P Singh Deo, former Cabinet minister and a patron of Corporate Games in India, emphasised: “It is good that finally Corporate Games have been introduced in India. These games are prevalent world over for last two and half decades. In countries like Australia, they conduct these games in three cities namely Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. Purpose of these games is to encourage corporate employees to practice regularly a game of their choice and come to compete with other corporate employees with a view to retain life-long fitness and also inculcate good qualities of sports, i.e., spirit-de-corps, will to win , magnanimity in victory and defiance in defeat.
“Needless to say that sports helps to integrate organizations and create feeling of friendship and fraternity, accruing in general happiness of their employees which in turn improves productivity of the corporates, resulting in improvement in the bottom line. It will not be out of place to say that countries become stronger who have widespread sports culture among all age-groups. It is heartening that India has started improving its medal tally in Olympics, by winning six medals including two silvers, though we had the potential to win few more medals.”
As senior Vice President of IOA, he added that the country should now be striving to win about 15 medals in the 2016 Rio games, and more than 25 medals in 2020 Olympics.
Mr. A K Pandya, former Secretary Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports, as well as the chairman of the organizing committee of Corporate Games, mentioned that the Corporate Games are also held at the world level once in 2 years, and medal winners from each country are eligible to participate on the international level. While thanking friends from the media for their continuous support for the promotion of Corporate Games in India, he mentioned that it would help to create a sports culture, as participants of Corporate Games, who may be young parents, would certainly encourage their children to play for fun and play to win.
While concluding, Mr. Bhatia thanked the sponsors Li Ning, a leading sports apparel company, and Firefox, a famous biking company. He further thanked press both the print and electronic media for helping promote the concept of Corporate Games, which would in turn cultivate a culture of good health among the employees of corporates and public sector undertakings.
