Punjab government retrieves 4312 play grounds from land grabbers

Lahore: The Punjab government has retrieved 4312 play grounds from land grabbers in various cities and towns of the province of Punjab and the Punjab Sports Board has chalked out a comprehensive programme to provide necessary facilities in all these play grounds to convert them into the nurseries of sportsmen in Punjab.

This was disclosed by the Provincial Minister for Sports, Education and Youth Affairs Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan while talking to a delegation of educationists and sports critics from UK led by Chairman London College of Business Management and IT  Taha Qureshi here at National Hockey Stadium today. The Minister informed the delegation that 55 thousand youth development councils have been established throughout the province. He further informed that a plan for establishment of district sports academies and launching of a sports university in Lahore is in the pipeline.

He demanded that the Manchester Club, the Arsenal and other county clubs of Britannia should offer scholarships to the emerging footballers from Pakistan as millions of Pakistani expatriates live in UK and it was a social responsibility of these sports clubs to accommodate young players from Pakistani origin as Pakistan is also self-sufficient in producing high caliber footballers apart from having world class cricketers and hockey Olympians.

Chairman London College of Business Management and IT Taha Qureshi warmly reciprocated the Minister by inviting him on a weeklong tour to the United Kingdom from 31^st October this year and offered that various seminars will be arranged to interact with the sports clubs and various universities of UK so that the Pakistani students and young players may be accommodated for further training in the Great Britain. He announced 8 full bright scholarships for LLM and other postgraduate disciplines of London College of Business Management and IT on this occasion and informed that DFID has also decided to grant 70 million pounds to the Punjab Education Foundation for enrolment of 40 lakh poorest of the poor students which are presently out of the PEF sponsored private schools in Punjab.