Guwahati, April 7: Petroleum giant Oil India Limited (OIL) is contemplating a full-fledged football academy at Duliajan to provide fillip to the game in the state.

Disclosing the plans to The Telegraph, OIL?s sports and welfare officer and former state footballer Ramesh Phukan said the company?s football management team has already started working on the project.

?We had started the process since August-September last year when we organised four talent hunt competitions in different parts of Upper Assam and picked up 24 promising players. Currently, they are with six more players picked from the Duliajan Football League. All of them are undergoing training under Swadhin Dekaraja and several others,? Phukan revealed. ?However, the first batch are all the older guys. Henceforth, we will look for younger players to be trained at the academy.? The next phase will begin from May or June.

OIL also plans to raise a second team to be based in Duliajan. ?It will help us develop a strong reserve force for the main group, which we propose to shift to Guwahati,? Phukan said. ?Besides, it will keep the players in the main team on their toes, as non-performers would be relegated to the B team and those performing better would be elevated to the main team.?

The Duliajan management had submitted the proposal to the company?s top brass more than a year back and has been waiting for a ?favourable reply? ever since.

If the plan materialises, it will also fulfil one of the major objectives of the Assam Football Association?s Vision 2008, which intends to impress upon the industrial and corporate houses the need to set up football academies.