PSB announces the schedule of Punjab Youth Festival

Lahore: Provincial Minister for Education, Sports and Youth Affairs Punjab Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan has announced the schedule of the first phase of forthcoming Punjab Youth Festival with nine events to be organized by 55 thousand Sports & Youth Development Councils at neighbourhood/village level.

The first phase of these events shall commence from 23^rd December this year and the general public has been asked to submit their registration forms after downloading from the web portalwww.sportsportal.punjab.gov.pk within next three days as the last date for submission of registration forms is December 21. These printed forms can also be obtained free of cost from the local office of union council, offices of Tehsil Sports Officers, relevant Assistant Commissioners and District Coordination Officers.

While presiding over a meeting of the Steering Committee for Punjab Youth Festival at 90-Shahra-e-Quaid-e-Azam Lahore today,  Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan said the objective of Punjab Youth Festival was to provide a door opportunity to the youth to envision their bright future and to provide an equal opportunity to citizens of all ages to test and prove their skills with the spirit of a lion heart. Our youth is dare to achieve the desired destination in a positive manner keeping up the sportsman spirit intact, he added.

The meeting was informed that the neighbourhood/village level events include individual events of Naat Khawani and Qirat, sports sector events of arm wrestling, athlectics, badminton, billiard, cricket (tennis ball), tug of war and volleyball. These events will end on the 1^st January 2014. Matches / competitions shall start simultaneously at all 55200 Sports & Youth Development Councils established at neighbourhood/village level. Only residents of concerned neighbourhood/village shall be eligible to participate. Best of the best players shall be selected after matches / events from amongst the participants through an impartial selection committee to be notified by tehsil sports and youth development councils.

Disputes shall be referred to jury of Appeal to be notified by tehsil sports and youth development council. The decision of jury shall be final and binding on all parties. There is no registration fee for participation at any level. However, employee players/ sportsmen and other professional of any department / organizations shall not be allowed to compete. They may compete in Punjab National Games 2014 at provincial level.

Provincial Minister for Sports disclosed that the Punjab Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif has decided to establish a sports endowment fund with a seed money of Rs.2 billion. This endowment fund will be utilized to train and polish the emerging young talent in the Punjab Youth Festival in future.

State of the art sports university will be established in the metropolis of Lahore while sports academies at district level will also be established through utilization of this fund besides providing financial assistance to the veteran sportsmen. A documentary film of 26 minutes duration regarding the highlights of Punjab Youth Festival 2012 was screened during the meeting. The Urdu version of this documentary will also be provided at tehsil level for exhibition by the government for the general public, the Minister concluded.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Information and Boardcasting Mohsin Shah Nawaz Ranjha, MNA Zulfiqar Nagra, Provincial Parliamentary Secretary Sarfraz Afzal, MPAs Naeem Ullah Gill, Ghulam Dastagir Lak, Abdul Rauf Mughal, Secretary Sports Punjab Muhammad Khan Khichi, DG Sports Usman Anwar, Divisional Commissioner Faisalabad Sardar Akram Javed, Commissioner Sargodha Muhammad Iqbal Chauhan, Commissioner Gujranwala Shumail Ahmed Khawaja, Coordinator for Hamza Shahbaz Sharif MNA Waseem Qadir and Legal Advisor to Punjab Sports Board Ali Raza Shah participated in the meeting. DCOs of Faisalabad, Chiniot, Mianwali, Layyah, Bhakkar, Gujranwala, Gujrat, Sialkot, Hafizabad and Mandi Bahauddin along with the divisional and district sports officers, directors colleges and EDOs (Education) were also present.