Bharat Chandra Narah (second from right) with Tarun Gogoi at the inauguration of the SAA office in Guwahati. File picture

Guwahati, July 25: Assam sports minister Bharat Chandra Narah has hinted that the Sports Authority of Assam (SAA) will be fully functional only by the yearend, after the dissolution of the National Games Secretariat (NGS) tentatively in December.

Talking to The Telegraph, the sports minister recently said the state government has directed the NGS to hand over the assets to the SAA and “a portion of the assets has already been submitted”.

About the amalgamation of the State Sports Council of Assam and the Board of Sports of Assam (BSA), the minister said, “The sports council needs only a resolution for merger with the SAA. As for the BSA, we will place a bill for scrapping the act under which it was constituted and merge it with the SAA.”

BSA employees, on the other hand, have demanded payment of their pending dues, in compliance with a recent Gauhati High Court directive, before its merger with the SAA.

Sources in Dispur have, however, said Narah, albeit all his initiatives for setting up the SAA, was “offended to some extent” by chief minister Tarun Gogoi not naming him in a respectable position in the governing body of the apex agency. Gogoi had named veteran referee and umpire Suren Ram Phookun vice-chairman of SAA.