With a view to develop and strengthen the sports culture at grass root level Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal today announced to launch Punjab leagues in hockey, volleyball, basketball, football and handball during weekends so that target for maximum participation of Punjabi players in Rio Olympic 2016 from the country could be achieve.Presiding over a meeting with higher officials of sports department on Wednesday here, Mr. Badal has directed the sports department to launch local Punjab league events in which teams of all 22 districts in 5 disciplines would compete for titles. He also asked the department to provide transportation and better lodging facilities to players at each district headquarter.
Deliberating upon the arrangements of upcoming 5th World Kabbadi Cup 2014, Mr. Badal has also approved the schedule of world cup which would be held from November 29 to December 14, 2014 immediately after the world Kabbadi league. (Deputy CM also directed the sports department to organise Shaheed Bhagat Singh sports tournament annually having multiple discipline competitions. This year the event would be held at the end of October or first week of November.)
To set the pace for Rio Olympics, Deputy CM has asked the department to especially concentrate on shooting and wrestling as Punjab has a great potential to bag medals in these events. To facilitate the shooters it was also decided to establish world class shooting ranges in Mohali and Bathinda besides providing free of cost weapons and ammunition including training from experts to the eligible players. Mr. Badal has also emphasized the need to engage the services of advances sports institutes like NIS Patiala and Army Institute of Pune in this regard.Deputy Chief Minister also approved the proposal regarding setting up of headquarter of Punjab State Institute of Sports at sector 78 SAS Nagar. Besides that he also ordered to appoint the Director General of for this sports institute by the end of next month.It was also decided in the meeting that winners of recently held Commonwealth games at Glasgow from Punjab would be honoured along with the medal winners in upcoming Asian games in Incheon (South Korea) as all players were busy in preparation for these games.