Naveen Patnaik lays foundation stone for country's largest hockey stadium in Rourkela

Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for the country's largest hockey stadium in Rourkela ahead of Men's Hockey World Cup 2023, which will be hosted in Bhubaneswar and Rourkela.

The new international hockey stadium to be named after "Birsa Munda" is going to be the modern field hockey facility.

The stadium site is located within the sprawling campus of Biju Patnaik University of Technology, one of the premier technical institutes of the State. The stadium is adjacent to the Rourkela air strip, where the commercial flights are expected to start soon.

The stadium will be a new benchmark in global stadium design for hockey, offering one of the finest spectator experiences in the world and, with a chaired seated capacity exceeding 20,000, and as a result, it will become the largest hockey stadium in India.

The stadium will be a model of green, functional, cost-effective design. Designed to deliver the best matchday atmospheres in the world, each seat will have uninterrupted sightlines and the spectators will be closer to the pitch than at any other hockey stadium in the world.

Working closely with Hockey India, every aspect of the technical and operational compliances have been met to provide a seamless facility to host the World Cup.

( With inputs from ANI )