To promote sports culture, Punjab Government plans to organise the second Shaheed-E-Azam Bhagat Singh State Sports Games at various venues throughout the State in February next year.
Punjab is already in the process of developing state of the art sports infrastructure in the State to involve the youth towards sports activities.
In the first edition of the games, competitions in 11 disciplines were held whereas the 2nd edition would provide opportunity to more players to showcase their skills in 15 games, a spokesman of the State Government said on Saturday.
He said the main highlight of 2nd edition would be the introduction of four new games — Tug of War, Handball, Badminton and Gymnastics besides other disciplines i.e. Athletics, Football, Hockey, Shooting, Wrestling, Boxing, Basketball, Judo, Volleyball, Weightlifting and Kabaddi. Competitions in all games would be held at various venues throughout the State.
The spokesman said the idea is to make Punjab a sports powerhouse and the Government is focusing on holding competitions of Olympic sports in the games which would certainly lead to the improvement of standard in Olympic sports thus paving the way for a rich medal haul at the Olympics.
He said the prize money in each sport in the previous edition of the State games was `21 lakh which is expected to go much higher this time as the decision in this regard is pending at the Government level.
listing out the achievements of the State Government in sports arena, the spokesman elaborated that the State Government had constructed six Astroturf Hockey stadiums besides setup the Punjab Institute of Sports (PIS) at SAS Nagar striving to train budding players in eleven disciplines by nurturing their talent and perfectly honing their skills.