SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Dr Arun Kumar Mehta, today impressed upon the officers of the Sports and Culture Department to give the opportunity to each person to either take part in sporting or other cultural activities for giving their creative energies a chance and improve the quality of their lives.
He made these remarks while presiding over the meeting to take stock of the preparations made for rolling out LG’s Sports and Cultural Rolling Trophies for the employees of J&K.
The meeting was attended by the Principal Secretary, Finance; Commissioner Secretary, GAD; Secretary, Tourism & Culture; Secretary, Youth Services & Sports; Director, YS&S besides other concerned officers of these Departments.
Dr Mehta emphasised on participation of 100% population in such creative activities to give each of them an opportunity to showcase their talent and chisel it further. He noted that everyone deserves to be happy and healthy in their lives and sports, art and culture are the sure ways of bringing both of these lifestyle changes simultaneously.
He urged them to involve people in as many sporting and art activities as possible. He asked for opportunities to both men and women right from the Panchayat level by involving them in the arenas of their choice including traditional art and sports activities. He advised them to conduct competitions in cuisine making, wickerwork, papermachie, woodwork, pottery, Bandpather, tug-of-war, Wrestling, and other relevant activities for the people of the local area.
He made out that before 2019 the participation of people in sports across the UT was bare minimum as the activities were restricted to a few urban pockets only. He said that today the number has crossed to more than 65 lakh in the UT for the reasons of due focus on the creation of requisite infrastructure and holding of sports competitions in each village.
The Chief Secretary stated that by giving the same impetus to the cultural activities right from the Panchayat level the times are not far when its participation would go up on similar lines. He told them to be innovative in the involvement of people. He said that by channelling the energy of youth in these activities they could be saved from becoming prey to drug addiction, thereby helping in the creation of ‘Nasha Mukt’ J&K.
While reviewing the rolling out of LG’s Sports and Cultural Rolling Trophies the Chief Secretary stressed on including more activities of art to give opportunities to more employees. He said that even employees need some opportunities to loosen up from their daily schedules. He asked them to even consider having a competition between Employees employee-winning team and the LG trophy winner from the civil side.
On the occasion, the Secretary of Culture, Syed Abid Rasheed Shah, informed the meeting that the Department is going to organize cultural activities in art forms like singing, painting, debating, poetry, essay writing and storytelling. He further informed that in each competition, participation at District, HoD, Divisional and Administrative Department levels shall be ensured. The trophy would be given to the best administrative department and kept by it till the next competition. He also gave out that cash awards to best performers would be given in each competition.
As far as the LG’s Sports Roller Trophy is concerned the Secretary of Youth Services & Sports, Sarmad Hafeez informed the meeting that the competitions in 6 sporting activities of Cricket, Football, Volleyball, Table tennis and Hockey would be held at both Jammu and Srinagar. He further informed that 552 matches involving more than 1600 employees would be organised over a period of 100 days.
It was also given out that sessions on Yoga and mental health are also part of this trophy. The venues, manpower and budget required for holding this sports competition were also discussed besides taking note of the paraphernalia and other gear that would be made available to the players participating in the tournament.
