BENGALURU: The
Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy
(PPBA) has asked its trainees from
Maharashtra, which has been badly affected by the
coronavirus pandemic, to put off plans to return to the city owing to the institutional quarantine mandated by the state government for people travelling from that state.
“We have told players from Maharashtra, five of them including top junior player
Rohan Gurbani
of Nagpur and
Prajwal Sonawane
of Nashik, to stay back. Institutional quarantine is a must if they enter Karnataka and we wouldn’t advise players to go through that. They can come back to Bengaluru once the situation eases,” PPBA director
U Vimal Kumar
told TOI.
For its players from other parts of the country, the PPBA has planned a two-week home quarantine at its apartments close to its training centre at the Padukone-Dravid Centre of Sports Excellence.
The academy has around 70 trainees. Twenty of them, including
Lakshya Sen,
Ashwini Ponnappa, Mithun Manjunath and Rahul Bharadwaj, have already begun training at the centre after the lockdown was lifted recently. Amongst the others, 30 of them are expected to return over the next few weeks in small batches. The induction of 20 freshers, chosen by the academy this summer, has been put on hold.
“We have asked all those who want to return to get clearance from local health authorities. The first batch, around 8-10 seniors including Ansal Yadav, Siddharth Pratap Singh and Alap Mishra, will land here by June 13. They will be housed at our apartments. We have got permission from the housing society to quarantine them. The arrival of players has been spaced out well so that home quarantine is not affected,” Vimal said.
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