Vadodara: Ratusinh Na Muvada, a tiny village of just 100 households, which emerged as an unlikely nursery of young chess champions, is now set to house what could be India’s biggest govt chess school.The dream project is inching towards reality with Mahisagar district administration expediting identification of land for the school campus which will be nearly 8.5 times the ramshackle present one which runs with five rooms under a cement roof. Of the five, only 2 are usable.The exercise has gathered pace 11 months after TOI highlighted how nearly 200 children, most of them kids of daily-wage or farm labourers, are getting trained in chess by a maths teacher, Sandip Upadhyay.The administration has decided that the new school building proposed under the Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan will include a dedicated hall exclusively for chess coaching.Mahisagar collector Arpit Sagar said, “The land identified earlier required substantial landfilling because of ravines, which would involve considerable expenditure. We are now identifying another suitable parcel of govt land for the project. We have already discussed the proposal with officials of Samagra Shiksha.”Since introducing chess in 2021, Upadhyay has transformed the school into a chess powerhouse with a mission to produce 50 grandmasters and 10 world champions.“My concept is that not only children from our own village but also those from across the country who are needy and do not get a proper platform can stay here and undergo coaching for chess. Along with chess, they should also prepare for competitive examinations like GPSC and UPSC as well,” he said.He envisions the campus as a centre where talented rural children receive world-class training irrespective of their financial background while also preparing themselves for higher education and public service careers.The initiative has already produced 16 FIDE-rated players, while 21 students have secured admission to the state govt’s District Level Sports School (DLSS), where they receive specialised coaching, education and residential facilities.After TOI’s report in Sept 2025, massive help in the form of financial assistance, chess equipment and institutional support poured in to enable students to participate in national tournaments.The school’s growing reputation also caught the attention of Ankit Rajpara, one of only two grandmasters from the state, who has been conducting a free coaching session for the students every month for the past seven months.
