Lucknow: In order to promote sports talent in rural Uttar Pradesh and hone the skills of players, the Yogi Adityanath government is organising rural sports events in all 75 districts and setting up mini stadiums in the rural areas.
As many as 20 mini stadiums are being constructed in the state with the government releasing the third installment for the construction, one of these is already completed. In addition to these, the government has also sanctioned 30 more such stadiums which are in the different stages of the process.
The idea behind the whole exercise is to tap the immense talent in the rural areas and give them a national and international platform. "By setting up mini stadiums in the rural areas will give the youth opportunities and the facilities for the exposure. It will be pertinent to state that recently, the CM Yogi had felicitated the sportspersons who brought laurels to the country in the Tokyo Olympics."
Sports event organised at block level for the first time
After the Yogi government came to power in the state, it started organising rural sports competitions to encourage the youth to pursue sports. An amount of Rs 40,000 was released to each district for the events.
In view of the interest of the players in the rural sector, the budget was increased in the financial year 2018-19. Now the Sports competitions have also been started at the block level with a budget of Rs 250 lakh was given for this.
Expanding it further, rural sports competitions were organized in 701 development blocks of 62 districts during 2020-21. A total of 18 divisional and 6 zonal level competitions were organised during this and gave the rural youth an opportunity to come forward through these competitions.
