Chief Minister of Uttarakhand Harish Rawat flagged off the second Ma Ganga half marathon on Sunday from Roshanabad. Flagging off the 21 km long half marathon organized by district sports department, CM said the main aim behind organising Ma Ganga half marathon was to help the message of keeping ganga clean reach to common man. Also it was aimed to make the country realise that Uttarakhand had revived from the Kedar tragedy and was safe. He said he aimed to make the marathon take to national level in the coming years.
Addressing the participants at Roshanabad, CM Rawat said, “The progress of any country was possible only when people have the spirit of togetherness and work is accomplished with team spirit.” He said that plans were afoot to make Ma Ganga half Marathon a National event in next five years.
The half marathon began from in the morning at 8.30 am from Collectorate chownk in Roshanabad traversing through Navodaya Chownk, PRD office, Mahindra Crossing, Shivalik Nagar, Chandracharya Chownk, Devpura, Dam Kothi, Alaknanda hotel and CCR tower in which people from all age groups participated including men, women and veterans. Winners scoring first 11 positions were given prizes by the CM. The first three position holders in man and women category were given prizes of 1 lakh, 75000 and 50000 rupees and the veterans were given 25000, 20000 and 10000
Also consolation prizes of 10000 each from position fourth to eleventh were given ` 5000 each. In men’s category, Satendra Singh from Army Centre Hyderabad won first prize, Ravindra Kumar of Sultanpur got second and the third prize was bagged by Virendra Kumar of Army centre Hyderabad. In women’s category, Meenu of Bulandshehar, Anita Chowdhary from Haldwani and Arpita Saini of Muzaffarnagar got the first three positions respectively. In veterans category, Dinesh Kumar of Delhi got first, Mukesh Rana of Uttarakhand Parivahan got second and Surendra Kumar of Panipat got third position.
All district administration and sports officials were present during the marathon.