File photo: Hockey coach Baldev Singh (Centre) supervising players during a training session in this undated photo. | Photo Credit: The Hindu

Baldev Singh, who turned the quaint town of Shahabad Markanda on NH44 into a conveyor belt for elite hockey talent, will be conferred the country’s prestigious civilian honour, the Padma Shri, by President Droupadi Murmu on May 25, officials said on Wednesday.

The 75-year-old arrived in Shahabad Markanda in 1982 as a coach with the Haryana Sports Department and served there for four years. He returned to the town in 1993, turning the hockey nursery into one of the most productive centres for hockey talent, they said.

Beginning his professional career with the Namdhari hockey team in Bhaini Sahib, and armed with a diploma in hockey coaching from the National Institute of Sports (NIS), Bengaluru, in the early eighties, Singh used his experience to mentor more than 80 international players and eight Indian captains.

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With the academy becoming a provincial engine for the sport, Singh occupied pivotal roles within hockey’s competitive structure. He served as chief coach and selector of the junior men’s team in 1993, assistant coach of the Indian side that won the Champions Trophy in Madras in 1996, and later as chief coach of the senior national team.

From 2001 to 2004, he served as coach of the Indian men’s team, including at the Champions Trophy in Amstelveen, Netherlands, and guided the side to a gold medal at the Asia Cup in 2004, they said.

For more than four decades, Singh has operated far from the glare usually reserved for star athletes, helping shape the institutional framework of Indian hockey.

He has also contributed as hockey coach at Sri Guru Granth Sahib World University, Fatehgarh Sahib, and Khalsa College, Amritsar, and served as a core member of the Olympic Task Force constituted by the Centre to prepare a road map for the 2020 Tokyo, 2024 Paris and 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Published on May 20, 2026