Shooting as a sport discipline is all set to be promoted in a big way in state as Punjab Rifle Shooting Association (PRSA) has chalked out an ambitious plan to encourage the budding shooters from school level keeping in view the possibilities of Olympic and other international medals with availability of tremendous talent.Presiding over the prize distribution ceremony of 10th Sardar Sajjan Singh Sethi Memorial Masters Shooting Competition in Shotgun events held at New Moti Bagh Gun club, Patiala, the Punjab Revenue & Public Relations Minister Mr. Bikram Singh Majithia, President PRSA said that we were committed to promote shooting in a big way to produce ace marksman to excel in international arena thereby brought laurels to the country and state. He informed that world class shooting ranges would be established at Ludhiana, Amritsar, Mohali and Bathinda, covering all the three regions Malwa, Majha and Doaba. He said basic shooting ranges would simultaneously be set up at all district headquarter to encourage more and more youngsters to take up sport of shooting as the performance of Indian shooters in International arena in recent past raised the hopes for Olympic medals.Mr. Majithia said that after organizing Punjab State Inter-School Shooting Championship that too with Rs. 10 lac prize money, the PRSA would now follow up with the hosting of the Punjab State Open Shooting championship soon. He revealed that Badal village shooting range has been set up at the cost of Rs. 1 crore and was considered best range of the country. Weapons and ammunition worth 60 lac were purchased for the Shooting range at village Badal. He further said that the Punjab government has established Shooting academy for girls at village Badal where the girls were being provided free lodging and boarding along with specialized training.
He said that besides reserving three percent sports quota in all government jobs, “A” class jobs have also been provided to shooters who had excelled in the sport. He said that sport budget had also been increased from Rs 12 crore to Rs 142 crore in 2013-14. He pointed out that Shooting was an important Olympic sport in India. India has won total 26 Olympic medals and 4 have come from Shooting including a Gold by Abhinav Bindra in the 2008 Olympics. He said that Punjab has also produced number of excellent shooters, who have performed very well not only at national but international level also. He listed the names of Abhinav Bindra, Manavjit Sandhu, Ronjan Sodhi, Mansher Singh, Amanpreet Singh, Avneet Kaur Sidhu, Harveen Sarao, and Heena Sidhu.Recalling the significant contribution of late Sajjan Singh Sethi, who remained President of NRAI for 6 years, Mr. Majithia said that during his tenure the shooting sport made tremendous improvement. Many shooters were sent abroad for taking part in International competitions with the financial aid from the NRAI. This helped to improve their standard and they could win medals in International competitions. Besides this, one of his greatest contributions was the construction of the Dr. Karni Singh Shooting Ranges, New Delhi which was the first range in the country built as per International standards, he added.
Later on, Mr. Majithia along with Mr. Raninder Singh, President, Mr. Avtar Singh Sethi, Senior Vice-President and Mr. DVS Rao, Secretary General, NRSA honoured the winners with medals.Trap Shooting Results: In Senior Men category: Asad Sultan, R. Rizvi and Zorawar Sandhu won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals respectively. Similarly in Junior Men Category: Namanvir Singh Brar, Mohd. Sheesh and Suleman Arsh Ilahi won first three positions consecutively.