Ranchi: When there's will, there's a bus for the way.
A 50-member-strong contingent of Kendriya Vidyalaya cradles of Ranchi region, including 41 selected students from nearly 40 institutions, will finally make it to 48th Kendriya Vidyalaya Schools (KVS) National Sports Meet at Guwahati in Assam.
This comes as a welcome relief following anxious moments almost the entire last week when it looked like students would miss the opportunity over unavailable train tickets.
The contingent left for Calcutta by a special luxury bus from KV Hinoo, from where they would reach Assam's largest city in two trains to take part in the national sports meet from November 1 to 4.
The teams of U-17 and U-19 players comprise five disciplines, skating, kabaddi, basketball, taekwondo and boxing.
Sunday's development comes after The Telegraph in its October 26 report highlighted how medal hopefuls of KV Ranchi region were set to miss the meet this time as the lone train from Ranchi (Ranchi-Kamakhya Express), in which they had confirmed tickets for October 29, got cancelled because of floods in host state Assam.
Organising body Kendriya Vidyalaya Sanghathan was then compelled to call off participation.
A formal notice in this regard was issued to all schools last week, upsetting many who went on to question why the teams could not be sent through alternative modes such as by air or road.
Niranjan Kumar, assistant commissioner of KVS, had then told The Telegraph that rules from their headquarters didn't permit them to send students outstation unless they get confirmed berths in trains.
But, contacted on Sunday, Kumar said the management of KV Dipatoli had been asked to make alternate arrangements for travel.
KV Dipatoli principal Daniel Tirkey briefly told this correspondent that they had arranged a bus after special directives from their higher-ups. KV Hinoo had been made the nodal point for the contingent to assemble and board the bus, he added.
Though the phone of KV Hinoo principal R.C. Gond was switched off, a school official unwilling to be named expressed happiness.
"Our players are finally going to the national meet. Feels good to see them upbeat," the official said. "We will be bagging at least a couple of gold. Our taekwondo team has always been strong and has won medals in the past too. In other disciplines we are in a better position today and are hoping for medals."
He added that the possibility of flight tickets from Calcutta was explored but getting so many seats on priority basis was difficult. So, finally two trains from Calcutta were finalised.
Jharkhand has some 40 KVs run by KVS (Ranchi region), an entity under Union human resource development ministry.