"The NSC hostel will start before the Tihar festival and it can serve at least 40 athletes in the initial stage," said Lama to Republica. "I hope the hostel can serve 80 to 100 athletes after the completion of the project," he added.[break]
NSC has been renovating its facility within the Dashrath Stadium which houses its Training Department, Sports Medicine and Research Center, and Sports Academy Nepal. "We´ve already shifted the Training Department from the building and we´ll shift all other offices except the Sports Medicine and Research Center," said Lama.
"The center will be in the same building as it ensures players get medical facility within their hostel building itself," he added.
NSC has been upgrading the amenities including toilets and bathrooms in the building apart from carpeting the floors. NSC plans to provide the rooms to sportsmen on double-occupancy basis. The rooms will have two beds and a table.
"We will run up a bill of Rs 1.1 million to create this facility but this investment will serve us in the long run," said Lama. "I´m sure this project will help us in providing better facilities to athletes and even save our cost for closed camps," he added.
Sports associations can use the hostel for their closed camp training while athletes and coaches from outside the valley can use it for maximum five days while visiting Kathmandu. The hostel will have a common dining facility.
"The basic idea is to provide a conducive environment to athletes during closed camps," said Lama. "It will also end the possibility of misusing funds in closed camp training," he added.
However, the facility will be inadequate for the big events like South Asian Games and Asian Games.
"These are some special occasions. In such cases, we´ll utilize the hostel to its capacity and provide hotel facility to the rest of the athletes but I want to assure you that the hotel rooms that we will provide will be of high standards, not like the hotels in the bylanes of Sundhara," said Lama.
NSC has formed a separate section to look after the hostel and has deputed Tek Bahadur Bam as its coordinator.
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