Peshawar - As an important step towards promotion of sports activities, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday designed a project for the establishment of an international standard cricket stadium at Kalam, Swat.
The proposed stadium will be established on 120 acres of land already available. The project will be completed with an estimated cost of Rs358 million in two years. Besides other facilities, the proposed stadium will have a capacity to accommodate 6000 spectators at a time. Instead of cement concrete, artificial wood will be used in most of construction work of the stadium to maintain the natural beauty of the area.
In this regard a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Mahmood Khan to review progress on proposed project in which design of the stadium was presented. The Chief Minister agreed in principle with the design and directed the concerned authorities for necessary steps to start practical work on the project well in time.
Secretary KP Sports Abid Majeed, Director General Sports Asfandyar and other concerned officials also attended the meeting. Briefing the Chief Minister about various aspects of the project, it was informed that a suitable piece of land measuring more than 600 kanal was already available in Kalam for the construction of sports infrastructure out of which only 120 acre was required for cricket stadium.
The Chief Minister directed the authorities to design projects for setting up a football ground and park on the access land further directing them for plantation on considerable piece of land as well so that natural beauty of the area could further be enhanced with the aim to promote Eco Tourism.
Mahmood Khan termed promotion of sports activities in the province as one of the priority areas of his government and said that as per the vision of Prime Minister Imran Khan, the provincial government was taking result-oriented steps under a well-planned strategy to ensure conducive environment for sports activities in the province.