Directorate of Sports KP to sponsor players for international events: Junaid Khan

PESHAWAR, Jul 30 (APP):The Directorate of Sports KP has
decided to sponsor players for international event in all games and
particularly those players who won medals in any edition of the Under-23 Games,
Quaid-e-Azam and Inter-Provincial Games, DG Sports KP Junaid Khan told APP here
on Monday.
He said sponsoring the players for international event is
actually part of the Mega Project launched in way back 2015 with the name of
Under-23 Games. Luckily, the project including holding of U-23 Games on annual
basis, award of sports scholarship for education to budding and talented
youngsters and financial grand-in-aid to players to get international exposure has
also been approved till 2022, he said.
It is an historical moments for the players of KP that
the summary submitted by the Directorate of Sports has been approved with an
annual grant of Rs. 30 million. He also lauded the role of Secretary Sports
Muhammad Tariq Khan, former Chief Secretary Azam Khan and former Chief Minister
Pervez Khattak for giving favorable remarks.
He said the U-23 Games was launched in 2016 at cost of
Rs. 3 million wherein initially there were 3500 male and female players took
part, and in second edition in 2017 the number of athletes have been increased to
8500 players that cost Rs. 7.5 million, followed the recently concluded 3rd
edition of the U23 Games in which a record number of 11500 players took part in
26 male and 17 female Games.
The third edition was organized with the cost of Rs. 20
million in 2018 and like in 2016 and 2017 all the players were provided full
uniform including track-suites, shoes, game uniform, TA, DA and cash prizes for
the winners Rs. 50,000 and Rs. 30,000 for runners-up, he said.
There are three major segment of the project – one holding
of U-23 to be organized on annual basis, secondly award of sports scholarship to
the budding and talented players and issuing of grant-in-aid to the players to
get international exposures.
He said each year the facilities to the players in term
of cash awards, sports scholarship and approval of grant-in-aid for international
exposures would be increased so that to bring the KP sports at par with Punjab
and Sindh.
DG sports said that during the games separate ceremonies
of the logo lunching were conducted first at district level across the province
and secondly in second phase similar activities were organized in regional headquarters
comprising Peshawar, Mardan, Hazara, Malakand, Kohat, Bannu and DI Khan.
He said through these games every individual got a chance
to come up and participate in the Games first in their respective district and
later on all the winners teams of each districts competed at regional level.
He said that a total of 35,000 youth from across the
province were involved, out of that 11,500 youth were short-listed through open
trials on merits and were part of the overall Games.
At district level competitions were held in 15 male and
13 female games. The games for male comprising football, hockey, basketball,
volleyball, squash, badminton, table tennis, tennis, athletics, gymnastics,
judo, karate, wrestling, kabadi, tug-of-war, taekwondo, cycling, handball,
snooker, wushu boxing, archery, muay thai, weightlifting and full body contact
karate.
The games for female include
cricket, hockey, basketball, volleyball, netball, squash, badminton, table
tennis, athletics, baseball, judo, taekwondo, handball and Wushu.
He said that six new games for male including wushu,
boxing, archery, muaythai, weightlifting and full body contact karate and four
for females including taekwondo, wushu, tennis and rounder were included in the
last edition.
He disclosed that Rs183 million was allocated for the
games in which Rs. 60 million spent on provision of sports gears to the players
and Rs.6 million for organizing Special Games for Paralympic Athlete.
He said that the provincial government has focused its
energies to organize healthy and productive activities for the youth in the province.
He said that the Directorate of Sports was committed to
support and sponsor the talented youth, adding the winner for the two previous
editions of the U-23 Games had been given the opportunity to represent the
province at various national and international level competitions. “We are also
providing sponsorship to the players to visit abroad and compete in various
international level events so to get international exposure,” he said. Besides
all this the position holders of 3rd Quaid-e-Azam Games and 4th
Inter-Provincial Games were also awarded cash incentives of Rs. 3.5 million.
The gold medalists of every category awarded Rs.30,000,
silver medals Rs. 20,000 and bronze medalist Rs10,000 in cash. The team Games
winner got Rs. 100,000 in cash, he concluded. A total of Rs. 1.5 million was
distributed from the Sports Endowment Fund among national and international
players who excelled in different Games.
About the grant-in-aid for international event, he said, every
player need financial support would be going through a scrutiny committee and
after approval by the committee cheques of Rs. 100,000 would be released
accordingly. He said the medal winners of the Inter-Provincial Games, sports scholarship
for the medal winners of 3rd edition of U-23 Games would also be
awarded cash incentives as announced well before these Games in the end of this
month or in September 2018.