The 24th PSPB Inter Unit Chess Tournament is off to an exciting start at the MRPL Employees Club Auditorium at Bala, Mangalore.

Shri P P Upadhya, Managing Director of host company MRPL (Mangalore Refinery & Petrochemicals Ltd, a schedule A miniratna ONGC group company and a member of PSPB) inaugurated the event by unveiling the event logo that was drawn on the spot by Artist JayaPrakash of Dakshin Kannada District.

This Tournament, from 30th March to 3rd April 2014, is one of the most prestigious events in the All India Chess federation calendar as the cream amongst the Chess players in India will be checkmating it out for the top honours. 12 Teams representing ONGC, IndianOil, BPCL, HPCL, OIL, GAIL, MRPL have registered and schedules drawn up based on the swiss system.

WGM Koneru Humpy, GM Sasikiran are representing ONGC, while WGM Sowmya Swaminathan, GM’s S.S.Ganguly,B.Adhiban, Abhijit Kunte are representing IndianOil . GMs Pendalaya Harikrishna, , Abhijit Gupta are representing BPCL at the Mangalore Tournament that comprise both Team and Individual events.

Speaking at the inaugural ceremony Shri Upadhya, MD, MRPL pointed out the support provided by Oil Sector Ministry and its PSUs to nurture sport and talent that bring back honour to the Nation.

Shri Vijay G Joshi Director Refinery, acknowledged the value of the sports recruitment policy implemented by the Govt of India.

Shri Y Ravindranath, CVO, MRPL appreciated the power and scale of talent from the National & international Chess platform that was available in the host MRPL Employees’ Club this morning.

Shri Rathinam Anantharam, International Arbiter and Chairman Arbiters Commission All India Chess federation and Asst Secretary, Qualification Commission, World Chess Federation and Shri V Vijayraghavan, Deputy Arbiter, Asian School of Chess are the Arbiters for the Tournament.

Additional Notes:

ON PSPB :

Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) provides a platform for talented sportspersons of the country through employment (by its member organizations)) and financial support, to enable them to excel in their chosen sporting discipline in the national and international arena, in particular, to bring sporting glory and honour to the country. They hold Tournaments in 16 different categories of sports like Cricket, Table tennis, Tennis, Golf, etc.

Currently 12 Pubic Sector organizations from the Petroleum Sector are members of PSPB:

1.Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd.
2.Indian Oil Corp. Limited
3.Bharat Petroleum Corp. Ltd
4.Hindustan Petroleum Corp. Ltd.
5.Oil India Limited
6.GAIL India Ltd.
7.Engineers India Limited
8.Chennai Petroleum Corp. Ltd.
9.Mangalore Refinery Petrochemicals Ltd.
10.Numaligarh Refinery Ltd.,
11.Balmer Lawrie.
12.Petronet LNG Limited