The city of Indore will finally get its first astroturf hockey ground after months of waiting due to procedural delays.

District Sports Officer Joseph Baxla informed that the state government has finally accepted the proposal to build an astoturf hockey pitch in five acres of land in the suburban Bijalpur area of the city.

"The astroturf hockey pitch in Indore with a cost of Rs 5 crore is expected to come up in 18 months," Baxla said.

Baxla also said that there was a proposal to build an astroturf in the city-based Prakash Hockey Club's ground in the Residency area but it was scrapped as the developer found the space inadequate.

The Indore Municipal Corporation (IMC) had later turned that space into a waste disposal centre.

"That's why the turf for hockey could not come up and the IMC took possession of the land," Baxla said.

Since then former Indian hockey team goalkeeper Mir Ranjan Negi, who was the inspiration behind the Bollywood blockbuster ''Chak De India'', had been advocating the need for an astroturf in Indore.

Devoid of basic infrastructure, Negi had been forced to impart hockey skills to poor children of the city on a footpath.

"I am training 125 children mostly poor, on a footpath attached to the district jail''s boundary wall in Residency area," the 62-year-old Negi said on Tuesday.