Diljit Dosanjh’s two-day concert in New Delhi left the Jawarhal Nehru Stadium (JLN), the country’s best training ground for athletes from various sporting disciplines, in ruins. When the athletes arrived at the venue Monday morning, they were in shock at the state of the stadium and training facilities. Beer bottles, piles of trash, food waste, plastic bags were littered everywhere, making it almost impossible to even breathe there, let alone work out.

The track was closed for 10 days due to Diljit Dosanjh’s music event on October 26-27 and is expected to remain closed for a few more days while organizers work on the cleanup. As a result, several athletes preparing for the Junior National Championships and other local events had to move to the less-maintained warm-up track outside the main stadium. They said it disrupted their training.

The Hindustan Times had earlier reported that the organizers had damaged the athletic equipment belonging to the trainees. A video with HT showed broken locks and hedges thrown into a corner. Worse still, when the trainees reached the JLN Stadium – it is owned by the Sports Authority of India – they were depressed at the sight of beer bottles, plastic, food and trash littered everywhere by fans attending the game. Dosanjh’s Dil-Luminati tour.

“It was a really bad show. We love this place and see what they did? said sprinter Ajit, who is preparing for the junior national championships in Odisha, which was postponed last week due to Cyclone Dana. The All India Police Championships are also scheduled next month.

“We tried to clean the place but it was not possible,” said the Delhi State and All India School Games Federation medalist.

Another sprinter from Delhi, Rahul Raj Mahato, said it was difficult to train on the outdoor warm-up track as it is old and worn. “You can see the base. There is a risk of injury. They (the concert organizers) damaged our hedges. Who will pay?

Beant Singh, Asian youth 800m champion, was seething. “We enter the stadium after having bowed. This is the respect we have. We take care and clean up the debris. This isn’t about throwing a party. How can elite athletes train here?

The JLN Stadium was the focal point of the 1982 Asian Games and was renovated for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. However, it lost its Class 1 status with World Athletics due to poor laying of the synthetic track, who developed “depression”. Although the Sports Authority of India (SAI) carried out some minor repairs and reopened the venue for training, it has since denotified it as a National Center of Excellence.

SAI reported that around 70,000 people attended a recent concert held over two days. They expect the site to be cleaned by the 29th, emphasizing that their contract with the event organizers requires the stadium to be returned in the same condition in which it was supplied.

However, after the first day of the concert, it was found that there were no trash bins available on site, leading many attendees to throw away trash, such as pizza boxes, water bottles and empty beer bottles, on the track, which remained exposed. According to Meharpreet Kaur, 29, who attended the event, this was a significant oversight on the part of the organizers.

SAI manages the stadium through a public-private partnership model to generate revenue from sporting and non-sporting events. One official expressed concern, saying the venue primarily hosts private events, making it difficult to secure dates for state-level competitions.

In response to criticism, SAI clarified that the concert was permitted because no training camp was planned at that time. They noted that JLN Stadium primarily caters to children in the Come and Play program and does not currently cater to elite, junior or sub-junior athletes. However, the coaches countered, mentioning that athletes from regions like Delhi-NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and Bihar train there. Many athletes from outstations rely on rented accommodation nearby, making the stadium vital for many elite, emerging and para athletes.