Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas and Housing and Urban Affairs Shri Hardeep Singh Puri inaugurated the fourth ONGC Para Games in Thyagaraj Sports Complex in New Delhi today. 275 Persons with Disabilities (PwD) – employees of eight central oil and gas public enterprises - are participating in the 4th ONGC Para Games, being organized by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) during 2-4 August 2022.

Inaugurating 4th ONGC Para Games, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri said, “The ONGC Para Games is a wonderful platform to bring in inclusiveness and equity in the human resource of the public enterprises under the Ministry.”

MoPNG Shri Hardeep Singh Puri interacting with the Para Athletes, along with ONGC CMD Dr Alka Mittal, after inaugurating the 4th ONGC Para Games in Delhi

In her Opening remarks, ONGC CMD Dr. Alka Mittal said that the ONGC Para Games is a special HR Initiative to provide Equal Opportunities to PwDs in all walks of corporate life. The intent is to contribute in the holistic development of the Human Resources of the public enterprises, who are our most valuable asset, in the pursuit of Energy, she said.

ONGC conceptualized and started this Para Games in 2017, to mainstream the especially-abled persons on their rolls. To widen the scope of the games, ONGC roped in athletes from IOCL, BPCL, HPCL, EIL, OIL and GAIL to be part of the grand 3rd edition of ONGC Para Games at Gandhinagar. In this current 4th edition, apart from the 192 ONGCians, seven other Public enterprises are participating viz. IOCL (21), GAIL (15), BPCL (13), MRPL (11), EIL (9), OIL (8) and HPCL (6).

ONGC organizes the Para Games on an international format from its very first edition in 2017 with the help of the Paralympic Committee of India, where 120 ONGC PwD employees participated in games like athletics, badminton, table tennis and wheelchair race.  The participation and the diversity of the games have progressively increased since then. Many of the para-athletes participating in the ONGC Para Games have brought glory to India in Paralympics also.

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YB/RKM