Conduct Sports Hunt To Unearth Hidden Talent

By: Jun 10th, 2017 12:20 am

Bhupinder Singh

(The writer is based at Jubbal, Shimla)

Bhupinder SinghDifferent board exam results declared recently points towards one fact that it is relatively easy to find a dozen of above 90% scoring students among few hundred of students. But sometimes it becomes difficult to find even one talented sportsperson from a crowd of lakhs of students. Therefore importance of sports talent hunt campaign increases to a greater extent. Only one boy or girl amidst a crowd of students could be found that has the capability to win a medal at international level.

Lack of sports talent hunt programmes in India is also one of the reasons for poor standards of sports in the country. Here only formality is done in the name of sports talent hunt. To locate the hidden talent in remote places of the country, the government started organising under-16 sports competitions of various sports from block to national level in 70s. These games were organised properly at state and national level but it missed the trick at the level where hidden talent was to be unearthed i.e at block level.

Hundreds of school students were deprived of this policy by organising competitions of two to four schools. All states of the country including Himachal Pradesh could not take much benefit of this policy. It was renamed as Rajiv Gandhi Khel Yojana in the last decade and later as Panchayat Yuva Krida Aur Khel Abhiyan. This policy was launched at panchayat level but later closed by government as did not fetched desired results. Now discussions are going on to launch this programme with a new name ‘khelo Bhrat’ this year. Most of the geographical land of Himachal is hilly and remote. Transportation medium are also costly here. The travel allowance and daily food allowance is specified at state and national level. But for maximum participation at block level, these funds prove like a drop in the ocean. This is also one of the major reason that this talent hunt programmes could not reach to maximum of hidden talents at block level.

Sports competitions of various sports at school level are also organised from the block level to national level. But here too it is a sort of formality at block level. Due to free education till class eighth, the provision of money depends on government grants. Participation at block level demands more money. But due to lack of funds only selective schools participate in block level games which defeats the aim of this programme. The government should provide annual budget to schools for sports talent hunt programmes. Sports that are declared favourable to Himachali conditions should be promoted and encouraged to maximum. For instance, Himachal is considered as an ideal place for medium and long races. So the state sports department and education department should organise races at panchayat level every month. There are many sports like kabaddi, volley ball, handball etc in which Himachali sportspersons have carved a niche for them.

Respective sports associations of these sports should organise sports talent hunt programmes in coordination with education department and state sports department to unearth raw talent at block level. Now when every kid is enrolled in school, battery test of each student should be conducted with help from school head and physical education teacher and the talented kid should be enrolled in training programmes.

भारत मैट्रीमोनी पर अपना सही संगी चुनें – निःशुल्क रजिस्टर करें !


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