The J&K Sports Council and the Sports Authority of India announced their partnership on June 13 in Srinagar with the goal of developing sports in the state. The main sports authority in J&K will work with SAI in a first-of-its-kind project to increase the number of Khelo India facilities in the state.
Secretary Nuzhat Gull signed the MOU on behalf of the J&K Sports Council, while Nadeem Dar, Deputy Director, in charge of J&K and Ladakh for the Sports Authority of India, also signed the document.
About forty Khelo India centres would be allocated to Jammu and Kashmir in the first phase of the KI centre allocation process, which will take place in 2020-21. Khelo India now has 100 centres, the most of any Indian state or union territory. This figure is the result of a recent increase of 60 additional centres.
Secretary of the Department of Youth Services and Sports Sarmad Hafeez believes that the merger of the two organisations would lead to more participation in sports throughout the whole UT by providing better resources for players.
Secretary of the Sports Council Nuzhat Gull called the signing of the MoU “a watershed moment,” claiming that it would pave the way for a new era in which J&K sports would give all athletes a fair shot at developing their talents and becoming household names. The two sporting organisations have joined forces for the sake of J&K sports, as stated by Nuzhat Gull.
According to experts in the field, having Khelo India institutes allocated exclusively to J&K is a unique intervention that would help turn the union territory of J&K into a sports hotspot. Khelo India centres have expanded to more than a hundred and are now present in all of J&K’s districts. Young people in J&K may sharpen their skills at these facilities.
The Sports Council and SAI have collaborated to develop a cost-effective framework for training future athletes, with the expectation that former champions would take on the role of instructors and mentors for the aspiring stars of the area.
Each of these facilities not only serves as a scouting ground for the area’s top athletes, but also as an alternate arrangement for communities who previously had access to organised sports.
According to the document of the MOU on the desk, SAI would pay for all of the centres while the Sports Council will supply the necessary infrastructure.
The Khelo India programme has helped several sportspeople in Jammu and Kashmir obtain the recognition and training they need to reach the highest levels of their chosen fields. The Khelo India centres were crucial in identifying and developing the region’s latent sports talent.
The majority of Khelo India centres have cutting-edge facilities, expert trainers, and an assortment of training programmes to meet the demands of athletes of all ages and specialisations. Because of this, sports in the area as a whole have flourished, and more and more kids are seeing athletics as a promising career path.
Khelo India centres have been more in-demand as sports fans and their parents see its transformative potential in recent years. J&K is projected to generate top-class athletes who will add to India’s athletic heritage, thus it’s encouraging to see calls for additional Khelo India centres to be made.
