A long term approach to save hockey as a sport is to develop it at grass root level. I have been a hockey player and the sticks provided by the school was half blade sticks at the level of under-19. We had our own sticks and the budget kept for hockey was Rs.5000 per year as compared to Rs.10000+ for cricket. Another important problem is lack of play ground for hockey. Unless you come from places like Punjab and other hockey playing states, we do not have good ground to play, forget astro turf. I do not know how many astro turf are in India right now. 4 years ago Netherlands had more than 400 turfs. That is a number