Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Molvi Imran Raza Ansari attended launch of national sports programme “Khelo India,” here at the national conference of the State Ministers and Secretaries for Youth Affairs and Sports.During the conference, Imran Raza Ansari said the youth in J&K are great assets as they have huge potential. “We need to come out of decades’ old mess. For this we want our country people to help us in restoring pride of youth, especially in State of Jammu and Kashmir,” Mr Ansari said. “It is high time to bestow the State’s youth with sports and celebrate their energy and sportsmanship.”The Minister also maintained that improvement and strengthening of ongoing youth programmes and schemes as well as youth development institutions require improvement and strengthening as well as restructuring through mutual sharing of experiences, and better practices under aegis of National Coordination Committee of Youth Organizations (NSSYO) constituted in May 2016.
He further said that this can help a long way in promoting exchange of ideas, values and culture among the youth on reciprocal basis within different States of the country and also promote international cooperation, peace and understanding.While talking about various sports schemes functional in the State of Jammu and Kashmir, Mr Ansari said that these schemes need to be revisited, and also modified according to emerging demands of international market and competition.The multi-faceted agenda of the conference was to develop sports, talent identification, sports infrastructure, integration of sports with education- schools games and university games, scheme of National Welfare Fund for Sports and scheme of special awards to medal winners in international sport events and their coaches.The Minister also put a proposal before Union Government for providing enough support for the development of football in particular, besides, winter sports and water sports in Jammu and Kashmir. In addition, he also demanded Sports Authority of India (SAI) centres to be opened in the State of Jammu and Kashmir and also training camps in each State for our players.