22 Grand Masters, 6 Women Grandmasters to take part in 32nd PSPB Inter-Unit Chess Tournament 2022-23 in Pune
Pune, March 7, 2023: 22 Grand Masters including R Praggnanandhaa (IOCL), B Adhiban (IOCL), Vidit Gujrathi (ONGC), Koneru Humpy (ONGC), and 6 Women Grandmasters including Padmini Rout (IOCL) will feature in the 32nd Petroleum Sports Promotion Board Inter-Unit Chess Tournament 2022-2023, hosted by Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana in Pune from March 8-12.
This was announced at a Press Conference today by Ajit Dhakras, Chief General Manager (Western Region) IOCL in the presence of Suresh Iyer, Deputy General Manager, Corporate Communications, IOCL, Bhalchandra Joglekar, Deputy General Manager (Sports) IOCL, Jasjeet Singh, Assistant Secretary, PSPB, Grandmaster Abhijit Kunte, Chief Manager (Sports), IOCL, Grand Masters Vidit Gujrathi, Koneru Humpy, B Adhiban, Raunak Sadhwani and Woman Grand Master Soumya Swaminathan.
The tournament comprising ‘Rapid’ games will be played as per the league cum knockout format in two categories – team championships and individual championships.
The matches in the team championships will be played from March 8 to March 10 from 10 AM to 12 PM and 2 PM to 4 PM, where 14 teams from different public sector oil companies will compete for securing the top honours. Two teams each from IOCL, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL) will be in fray.
The individual championships will be played on March 11 and 12 from 9 AM to 4 PM.
Some of the other prominent names to feature in the tournament include Grand Master Raunak Sadhwani, Grand Master D Harika, Woman Grandmaster Eesha Karavade, Grand Master Surya Shekhar Ganguly, Woman Grand Master Soumya Swaminathan, Grand Master Murali Karthikeyan, Grand Master MR Lalith Babu (all IOCL), Grand Master S P Sethuraman, Grand Master Diptiyan Ghosh (both ONGC), Grand Master Abhijeet Gupta, Grand Master G N Gopal (both BPCL).
In the team championships, IOCL has been given the top-seed, while ONGC is seeded second and BPCL is seeded third. In the individual championships, Grand Master Vidit Gujrathi is top seeded, while Grandmaster R Praggnanandhaa and Grand Master S P Sethuraman are seeded second and third respectively.
“The tournament will feature 8 Grand Masters from IOCL, 9 Grand Masters from ONGC and 5 Grand Masters from BPCL and 6 Woman Grand Masters – 5 from IOCL and one from Oil India Limited,” Dhakras said. Pune is hosting this tournament after almost one decade.
Both Vidit Gujrathi and Koneru Humpy termed the tournament as a strong tournament where a host of grandmasters take part, while B Adhiban and Soumya Swamithan acknowledged Indian Oil Corporation’s role in their career saying a job at IOC ensured that they were financially stable and could focus on their careers.
Sports in IOCL –
Indian Oil has been at the forefront of Sports across the country. Indian Oil started recruiting sportspersons way back in 1986. Since then recruitment has been done in 10 games like Cricket, Badminton, Table Tennis, Tennis, Hockey, Chess, Carrom, Athletics, Golf and Billiards & Snooker.
Indian Oil Corporation Ltd also introduced sports scholarships for young sportspersons in the year 2005 under CSR activity. Initially the number was only 50 in ten games which were subsequently increased to 150 in 20 games (Prominent games and Olympic medal prospect games). Now the number of scholarships has been increased to 250. Many of the currently recruited players have come through the sports scholarship of Indian Oil and are now international stars. Players like Prithvi Shaw, Lalith Babu, Dhvaj Haria, Kajal Kumari, Divij Sharan have come in IOCL through Scholarships.
In various games Indian oil has the following stars representing the country at the International level:
1. Cricket: Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Prithvi Shaw, Khalil Ahmed, Awesh Khan
2. Badminton: Lakshya Sen, Chirag Shetty, Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy, Ashmita Chaliha, Sikki reddy
3. Table Tennis: Sharath Kamal, Manika Batra, Manav Thakkar, Archana Kamat
4. Tennis: Rohan Bopanna, R. Ramakumar, Divij Sharan, Prarthana Thombare.
5. Billiards & Snooker: Aditya Mehta, Dhvaj Haria, Brijesh Damani, Laxman Rawat.
6. Hockey: Hardik Singh, Krishna Pathak, Dilpreet Singh, Simranjeet Singh, Sharmila Devi, Uditha, Beauty Dungdung
7. Chess: R. Praggnanandhaa, B Adhiban, Lalith Babu, D. Harika. S S Ganguly, Padmini Rout.
8. Carrom: Yogesh Pardeshi, K. Srinivas, Kajal Kumari, and M Gufran.
9. Athletics: Ameya Mallick, Indrajit Singh.
Indian Oil won the National Award for Outstanding work in the field of Sports under CSR in the year 2021-22.
Indian Oil has an illustrious list of National Awardees. To name a few: P Gopichand (Apart from Arjuna Award he has been decorated with Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, Khel Ratna, Dronacharya awards), Sharath Kamal, D Harika (Padmashree and Arjuna), Rohit Sharma (Khel Ratan & Arjuna), Manika Batra (Khel Ratna and Arjuna), Abhijit Kunte, Trupti Murgunde (Dhyanchand), Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Chirag Shetty, Lakshya Sen, Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy, Rohan Bopanna, Divij Sharan, Dilpreet Singh, Hardik Singh, Simranjeet Singh.
On August 15, 2021, driven by a strong social conscience, Indian Oil Corporation Limited embarked on a new social stewardship initiative, conceived and aptly named “Parivartan – Prison to Pride”. This initiative came in the wake of India’s 75th Year of Independence, being celebrated as Azaadi ka Amrut Mahotsav.
“Parivartan- Prison to Pride”, a brainchild of Mr. Shrikant Madhav Vaidya, Chairman, Indian Oil, is an initiative to engage and rehabilitate prison inmates across the country through sports coaching programs. Under the initiative, Indian Oil is facilitating training programs in various sports such as chess, basketball, badminton, volleyball and carrom across prisons in India to help improve the physical and mental well-being of prison inmates. In 4 phases so far, we have covered 51 Prisons spanning 21 states and 5 UTs with coaching to over 2550 inmates. We have also provided the equipment and kits to the participants of the program. International-level sports persons from Indian Oil have been supervising the program along with external coaches.
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