Yoga Yoga everywhere, but not a trainer to teach’

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Monalisa Patasani, OP
Bhubaneswar, June 20:It’s World Yoga Day Wednesday (June21). The stage is all set for city to host the third edition of Yoga Day. But, the state apparently lacks trained yoga practitioners, certified by the ministry of AYUSH.  The Union ministry had issued a circular to all directorates of AYUSH across the country in 2015 to bring all the yoga trainers and instructors under one framework. The ministry had directed the directorates to register the trainers or instructors. However, sources within the directorate of AYUSH in the city claimed that nothing of this sort has happened in Orissa. Apparently, there is a dearth of government registered Yoga trainers in the state. Orissa POST took the investigation a step forward. We chose to get both sides of the story. Not
just relying on the sources, we contacted the AYUSH director to know his views on the registration of Yoga trainers. Director Gopabandhu Sathpathy was ignorant about the current registration status. “I took over the charge of this department recently. So, as of now I don’t have any idea about the said circular. I will look into the matter,” he
said. A few years back, the department has also proposed to open a Yoga wellness center in Kalinga Stadium. However, the wellness centre is only on pen and papers perhaps. The department has again proposed for the construction of six other Yoga wellness centers. “Seven Yoga wellness centres
have been proposed in the city. This will come up in places like Kalinga Stadium, and parks. The work is still in progress. We are close to finalise everything. The center is likely to be opened soon,” he added. When asked about the reason for the delay, Satpathy said, “We need demonstrators and instructors for the centres. The
main reason for the delay is that we don’t have trained yoga instructors in the city. There is a shortage of qualified yoga trainers. We even started the recruitment process, but failed to hire skilled individuals. Recently, we have decided to outsource trainers to solve the problem.” The department will also start
centers in nine districts. “A proposal has been given to involve more areas in the state. An AYUSH gram will also be made in villages with more than 10000 populations. Initially, the set-up will be done in some villages of Boudh, Sundargarh and Jajpur districts,” he added. Orissa Post interacted with some local instructors to know what the present scene is. Harihar Sahoo, a faculty of Sri Sri University said, “It is very risky to learn Yoga from an untrained instructor. This may have adverse impact on your body. But, the city doesn’t have trained teachers for Yoga.” According to Sahoo, the crisis of teachers had apparently forced Utkal University to stop its Yoga courses in 2016.