LAHORE - Punjab Sports Board chairman Hamza Shahbaz Sharif has said that the ongoing Punjab Sports Festival 2012 will open a new era in sports besides serving as an effective medium to identify new talent.
Addressing a news conference here on Monday at National Hockey Stadium, Hamza said: “The participation of athletes from 36 districts of the province indicates that never before such a sports extravaganza was organised and we firmly believe that this grand event will open a new era in sports.”
Deputy Speaker Punjab Assembly Rana Mashhood and Director General Sports Board Punjab Usman Anwar were also present on the occasion.
Hamza said 650,000 players drawn from various parts of the Punjab displayed their talent in the various sports events organised at UC, tehsil, district and division level.
“In all, 150,000 students from different schools and colleges of the province participated in the sports festival which has set new bench mark in sports,” said Hamza, who is also the chairman of Punjab Sports Council.
He said Punjab government will do legislation to protest sports facilities throughout the province to avoid an effort of land grabbers.
“These sports infrastructure and facilities belong to the youth and there is dire need to keep them intact which is only possible by framing laws so that these grounds and other facilities may not be touched by land grabbers,” he added.
To a query, he replied that the sports festival would be made a regular annual feature to engage youth in healthy activities and to achieve the purpose of overall development of sports.
“We will be short-listing the outstanding players of different sports event to groom them on modern lines and to help them for becoming good athletes to become a part of national teams “said the chairman of Sports Board,” he stated.
When his attention was drawn to the fact that National Games are approaching and Punjab will be hosting them after six months, he said, that if the Punjab government can organise a huge sports festival, it is equally capable of organising the Games by extending all-out cooperation.
“We have a collective cause of promoting sports and our top priority will be providing maximum sports activities to the youth and we will be developing new grounds and sports arena equip with latest sports facilities to set new trends in sports,” he claimed.  What is needed to develop sports is to pay special attention at grass root level and Punjab government will organise sports events at all levels on regular basis in future, Hamza concluded. Meanwhile, some of Punjab Sports Festival final phase events took place on Monday while the opening ceremony of the event will be held today (Tuesday).