Playgrounds play an important role in attracting the youth of a countrytowards healthy activities in their lives.But unfortunately, the youth of Pakistanhave not beenable to getattracted towards such activities forour country has beenfacing acute shortage of playgrounds as far as the question of providingthese youth the facility of out-door games is concerned. Cricket is very popular game within Pakistan. The youth of the country find it really hard to satiate their thirst for this gamedue to non-availability of suitable grounds in their areas.Due to paucity of such grounds in our country, the youth of even bigger cities such as Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Faisalabad, etc. are seen playing cricket with their friends on the streets and roads near their houses on holidays. The same is the positionwith those youth who take interest in hockeyand football. In interiorSindh, there isn'teven asingledistrict which has aplayground worth mentioning. Take, for example, the case of district Sukkur. There is only one playground i.e Municipal Stadiumat the Minara Road, which however, is being used now-a-days for marriage functions and concerts. Some twentyyears ago, I used to play cricket with my friends and other known personson streets and roads near my house atSukkur. Nothingreally haschanged during allthese years andeven the youth oftoday of thecity are playing on the same roads and streets. Whether one believes it or not it is a fact that thereare separate cricket, hockey andrugby grounds (of thesize andstandard of the National Stadium Karachi) in every district of Australia besides a good number of smallto medium-range playgroundseven at the lower tier of the district there. If we really want to bring back our youth towards healthy activities of life, the government, then, must take serious and sincere steps for the establishment of big playgrounds in almost all the districts of the country. This would help inkeeping our youth busy in healthy activities besides keeping themfit. This would alsohelp them in not falling into any evilhabitsof heroin, charas, smoking, etc, because ofbeing idle. ABDUL SAMAD SAMO, Karachi, May 30.