Wonder kid Budhia Singh, who at the age of four ran 65 km between Puri and Bhubaneswar in 2006 and became a national talking point, seems to have gone missing from Bhubaneswar’s Sports Authority of India (SAI) hostel. Budhia, who now studies in Class IX in the city’s DAV English Medium School, was supposed to return to the SAI hostel at the end of the summer vacation last month.
His coach, Rupanita Panda, said that she had sent two letters to Budhia’s mother, who stays in Saliasahi slum of Bhubaneswar, last month. But there has been no word on his whereabouts, she said.
The marathon prodigy was admitted to the SAI hostel in September 2007 after the Odisha government, acting on the advice of Khurda District Child Welfare Committee, banned him from running marathon, saying “it may lead to growth retardation due to damage at the growing ends of the long bones”. His late coach, Biranchi Das, however was eager to see him run the marathon at the Olympics.
At the SAI hostel, the state government has been paying for his education, clothes and food.