With a view to encourage the youth to take active part in sports, the Government has decided to organise ‘Play Andhra’ sports festival across the State. It would be held at village, mandal, district, constituency and state levels.
Reviewing the activities of the Youth Services and Sports Department at a high-level meeting on Thursday, the Chief Minister directed the officials to make arrangements to organize the 46-day festival for boys and girls at school and college grounds, municipal stadia, district sports complexes and university grounds.
As part of the festival, cricket, kabaddi, volleyball, badminton and kho-kho matches can be conducted, he said adding that officials should also organise a 3-km run, yoga exercises, tennikoit and traditional games as part of the sports festival. This would be a regular feature every year, he said.
Stressing on the need to create a favourable ambience to develop professional cricket teams at district and constituency levels for grooming a team from the State to compete in the Indian Premier League, he instructed the officials to seek the guidance of CSK (Chennai Super Kings) team.
“With the inspiration of Ambati Rayudu and KS Bharat, we shall develop more cricketers. In the beginning, we will hand over the coaching responsibilities to the CSK at three stadiums and in the future, we shall seek the cooperation of the Mumbai Indians team also,” he said.
The Chief Minister said that the youth at the village level should be encouraged, and officials should devise ways to extend support to the village level players by handing over playing kits and encouraging them with prizes while giving priority to professionalism and establishing playgrounds in mandals.
“You should take steps to supply playing kits to the village secretariats in future, besides equipping all Government schools with necessary sports paraphernalia,” he told them, adding that every educational institution above high school must have necessary sports equipment.
The Chief Minister told them to formulate an action plan to establish indoor stadiums in all constituencies.
