National level shooter confident of the talent of Biharis

PATNA: The day is not far off when Bihar will have a pride of place in the national sports arena of shooting, said the international shooting coach, Dr Rajpal Singh, who has been camping here since mid-April to nurture the budding shooting talents of Nalanda district.

Singh, who had trained, among others, Rajiv Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi, told TOI here on Tuesday: “Till date, I have trained more than 400 shooters in the country. I find that the grasping ability of Bihari children is second to none. Their attitude towards the game indicates their bright future in shooting.”

Even girls and women have started taking to the game in Bihar. To promote the game among them, the state government has engaged the expertise of another famous septuagenarian woman shooter, Chandro Tomar. The shooter, who had been conferred Shram Shakti Puraskar by Sonia Gandhi in 2008, will be coaching the budding women shooters of Kalyanbigha village in Nalanda. Kalyanbigha is chief minister Nitish Kumar’s native village.

The shooting experts have been invited by the CM to train the boys and girls of the village. The training for boys had started on April 18 and continued till April 28. The formal training for women shooters started on April 30 and will continue till May 14.

“What is novel about shooting is that more the sound of guns reverberates in the minds of youths, the more they move away from crime,” said Singh.

The aim of the government is not only to nurture future shooting champions but also to help rural youths get jobs in the police or in defence forces.

“Shooting is a 100% job-oriented sports. If the trainees turn out to be first-grade shooters, they will have an edge in getting a job with the police or defence forces. Second-grade shooters, on the other hand, are quickly picked up by corporate honchos, business bigwigs or important persons for private security,” said Rajpal Singh.

Two expert shooters and disciple of Rajpal Singh, Nitu Tomar and Vartika Singh, who have been training a total of 40 women shooters at Kalyanbigha, said: “We had thought the women shooters here will not show much enthusiasm. But during a weeklong training we are surprised. They have proved that they are in no way inferior to their male counterparts.”

The trainees had a brush with success recently. A team of 20 selected shooters from Bihar went to the Mechanized Infantry Regimental Centre (MIRC) at Ahmednagar in Maharashtra, where after several rounds of examination a total of 17 boys were shortlisted. “Some of these boys will be getting jobs with MIRC soon,” said Rajpal Singh. A total of 35 boys have been getting training for shooting.

Initially, these trainee shooters will participate in interstate competitions which are scheduled to be held in October. Later, they will participate in 55th National Shooting Championships and 35th National Games next year.