Twenty six States will vie for top honours in the boys’ section while 22 teams will battle it out in the girls’ section to decide the champions in the seven-day meet. “The championship was originally scheduled to be held at Hosadurga but due to unavoidable circumstances we have to shift it to Bangalore,” said Karnataka Volleyball Association general secretary K Nanda Kumar at a press meet here on Friday.
The championship will be played in a league-cum-knock-out format with top two teams from the four groups making it to the knock out stage. Karnataka boys are drawn in Group D alongside West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Tripura and Assam. The State girls are pooled in Group C and they will face Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa and Mizoram in the league stage.
Karnataka boys and girls will be hoping to better their last year’s performance when they were placed fourth and fifth respectively.
Tamil Nadu boys won the title last year at Shimoga while Kerala took home the girls’ crown.
Groupings: Boys: Group A: Tamil Nadu, Manipur, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Goa.
Group B: Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar.
Group C: Haryana, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Chandigarh, Jharkhand, Mizoram, Orissa.
Group D: Karnataka, West Bengal, Jammu & Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, Tripura, Assam.
Girls: Group A: Kerala, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Pondicherry.
GroupB: West Bengal, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Delhi, Manipur.
Group C: Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Chandigarh, Goa, Mizoram.
Group D: Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa, Maharashtra.