Sir Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1955)One of the doyens of Science in India, Sir Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar (1894-1955), was the First Director Board of Scientific and Industrial Research (now re-designated as Director General) of the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR). He was also the first Chairman of the University Grants Commission (UGC). In 1936, Dr. Bhatnagar was rewarded with the Order of British Empire for his contribution to pure and applied chemistry. In 1943, the Society of Chemical Industry, London, elected Dr. Bhatnagar as its Honorary Member and later as its Vice-President. In 1943, he was elected the Fellow of Royal Society.
It was his dynamism and farsightedness that was responsible for the growth and development of not only the CSIR but also the level of Science & Technology in India. His untiring efforts, devotion to duty and pioneering work in the field of Chemical Sciences brought him many laurels from India and abroad. He emphasized on the utilization of science for national development and thus was a great builder of this important organization. The SSBMT is a novel way of paying tribute to this great personality and has been a forum for bringing together staff members of CSIR irrespective of discipline and organizational hierarchy. What started and progressed as a biennial event has now grown magnificently to outdoor and indoor tournaments held in alternative years in different national laboratory premises.
Sports activities are recognized as universal form of overall personality development. It is also a form of the great expressions of the aspirations of a person to excel. Appreciating the impact of employee recreation in the development of leadership qualities, interaction and communication skills that are essential in providing effective service delivery, organizing sports events and creating recreational environment have become an integral part of the personnel policy of CSIR. Towards this objective, the early initiatives taken by a few of the CSIR Institutes / Laboratories specially those located in remote places like, Pilani, Bhavnagar, Karaikudi, Dhanbad, Jorhat, etc, to form staff clubs are highly laudable. The Institutes/Laboratories set up their staff clubs, as soon as they were established. However, organizing sports events at the agency level in CSIR commenced only in 1953 with the initiative of the CSIR Headquarters when it hosted a tournament for the staff of Delhi-based laboratories. This ‘limited sports activity’ continued for three years which was elevated to an All India level tournament in 1955. In memory of the founder Director (now re-designated as Director General), Dr. Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar, the Tournament was named as the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Memorial Tournament(SSBMT) that enlarged the participation of all CSIR employees spread across the country. Initially, the tournaments were organized biannually having games such as Cricket, Volleyball, Tennis, Basketball, Table Tennis, Badminton, Chess, Carom and Bridge. The responsibility was then shouldered by the CSIR Headquarters Staff Club that used to organize the tournament in CSIR laboratories over a period of 7 to 8 days, every alternate year. The SSBMT held at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) in 1956 could be termed as the First All India CSIR Tournament. Meanwhile, CSIR considered providing greater impetus to sports within the system. An official platform was accordingly provided by forming the CSIR Sports Control Board (SCB) on the lines of those existed in the Railways, P&T, etc. Formalization of the CSIR Sports Control Board took place in March, 1980 with its registration as a Society under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860. In view of the objectives/role of Sports Control Board, its nomenclature was changed to the Sports Promotion Board (SPB). The SSBMT received overwhelming response with huge participation of around 1000 players and officials at one time. Some small Institutes/Laboratories with limited infrastructure experienced difficulties to host such mega events. It was therefore resolved to organize Zonals and Finals separately involving relatively lesser number of participants. All the 40 staff clubs were then clubbed to form four zones with the participation of around 200 participants in each zone. Top two successful teams in individual and team events of each game from these four zones then meet during the Finals. After employing various permutations and combinations over a period of time, the SSBMT came into being in its present form i.e. being organized every year, alternately for indoor and outdoor games. The present practice thus provides greater incentive to the best eight players/teams every year as they get an opportunity to play twice (at two different venues for zonals and for finals) during the same year. The CSIR-SPB, in addition to the above tournaments, also organizes certain specialized tournaments, such as: Nayuydamma Memorial Cricket Tournament, Atma Ram Memorial Volleyball Tournament; Thacker Memorial Lawn Tennis Tournament; Hussain Zaheer Bridge Tournament; Sidhu Memorial Table Tennis Tournament; A.P. Mitra Memorial Badminton Tournament; and Anusandhan Basket Ball Tournament (alternate years).