There is no dearth of sports talent in our country, we need to select and nurture such talented players, said the sports and education minister of Uttarakhand Arvind Pandey while speaking at the curtain raiser of Prime Minister’s Under 19 Football tournament (Boys and Girls) here on Thursday.
He regretted the fact that in our country politics plays a spoilsport and prevents real talent to come forward and blossom. “In such circumstances how will our sportspersons win medals in international eventsIJ’’ he asked. The minister congratulated the Indo- Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) for organising the tournament and hoped that it would do justice to the faith reposed on them by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. The Inspector General (IG) Northern Frontier, H S Goraya said that ITBP has been assigned the task of first phase of Youth under -19 talent hunt tournament -2017 in Uttarakhand. He informed that the tournament would be organised at Pavilion ground, Dehradun from May 01 to 10.
The Minister and the senior officers of ITBP released the mascot ‘ Gabru- the tiger cub’ in the curtain raiser. The organisers also felicitated international footballer Jatin Bisht and long distance runner Manish Rawat on the occasion.
The FIFA World Cup under- 17 tournament is being organised in India this year. As a run up to this important event the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi has directed that an Under -19 football tournament with a motive of talent hunt from every part of the country should be organised in all the states. The Government has assigned the task of organising this tournament to Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF). The under- 19 football tournaments are being organised in the states as “OORJA- 2017 Football tournament. In this tournament a total of eight teams each in boys and girls category will participate in the tournament. The winner of the tournament will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs 50000 and a trophy. The runner ups and team finishing third would be given a cash prize of Rs 30000 and 20000 respectively.