The State cabinet on Wednesday cleared a proposal to set up ‘Kamal clubs’ for honing up youth talents in all 4402 panchayats of the State.
The clubs would be a three-stage structure that to begin with would promote football. Importantly, Chairperson of Reliance Foundation and owner of IPl team Mumbai Nita Ambani has agreed to promote the club at the State level.
“The idea is to target youths falling in 18-40 age group. A panchayat has been made the primary unit for sports, cultural and different societal activities that houses about 4,000 to 5,000 population of which about 1,000 are youths. The clubs would be run by ad-hoc committee to be elected at panchayat, block and finally at district level,” said Amar Kumar Bauri, Minister for Sports, Youth and Cultural Affairs after the meeting.
He added that all the persons falling in the age group of a panchayat would be a member of the club which would be registered under Registration of Societies Act-1860. “Primary activity of the clubs would be to conduct sports, social works, discussions etc. This year we are starting with football and games like boxing, hockey would be added later on,” said Bauri.
The panchayat level club would select 15 players amongst the members while 15 best players would qualify for the block level team. Finally, a 15-member team would be formed at district level which would participate in the State level tournament coming from all the 24 districts. For this year, the final would be conducted in November matching with Jharkhand establishment month.
“The tournament would be like IPl and other club tournaments and separate teams of boys and girls would participate. The Chief Minister has got initial confirmation from Nita Ambani for her support at the State level, said the Minister.