New Delhi, Nov 17 (IANS): Hockey India on Tuesday announced that the state member units have formed masters committees to promote and further develop masters hockey across the country.

In March this year, Hockey India had joined 38 other national associations from around the world as a member of the World Masters Hockey (WMH). The WMH is the sole masters entity recognised by the International Hockey Federation (FIH) and is responsible for organising international masters hockey globally.

To further carry out responsibilities at the state level, Hockey India had encouraged all their state member units to form working committees comprising of former national and international hockey players to lead the state-level activity.

The committee's first responsibility will be to ensure all the masters athletes of various age categories are registered on the Hockey India member units portal. Some of the committee members of the state member units include the likes of former India captain Pargat Singh, Mir Ranjan Negi, Gurbux Singh, Birbahadur Chettri.

The Hockey India masters committee, which will be overseeing all matters related to these masters matches and tournaments at the national level in India, is headed by Harbinder Singh as the chairman of the committee, RP Singh as the convener, with members including former India players BP Govinda, Jagbir Singh, AB Subbaiah, Surinder Kaur and M Renuka Lakshmi.

Hockey India Secretary General Rajinder Singh said: "We are happy to receive great support from our state member units who have promptly formed their respectively committees with some very prominent names of Indian hockey."

"One of the goals of masters committee is to encourage players to come back onto the field and play hockey as a recreational activity and to stay in touch with the sport that they have always loved and been passionate about," he added.