Sports Department promotes rural talent in Sikkim

Gangtok, Jan 20 (ANI): The Sikkim Sports Department recently organized a sports meet under the Panchayat Yuva Kendra Khel Abhiyaan (PYKKA) scheme to promote rural sporting talent in the state.

With peace and normalcy prevailing in Sikkim, the government is looking at all round development of the state.

The PYKKA, a jointly funded sports mission by the state and Centre has now opened up opportunities for rural boys and girls to display their sporting talent.

The scheme aims at encouraging sports at grassroot level with a motive to increase the bench strength of players in the country by providing them with basic infrastructure.

"We should give credit to the Zila Panchayat, who on their own expenses brought teams from every corner and made one team, because many teams came out here, they just got experience here, everything is coming up, everything is being developed," said Rishi, a participant.

"Because in rural areas there is only football and cricket, but now what they are learning is kabaddi and other sports not to maintain themselves but to make a bright future," he added.

The centre keeping in mind the widening rural-urban gap has very efficiently designed the scheme. nder this scheme, players will be given the opportunity to participate in district and block level tournaments.

"If these kind of schemes carry out for more than 5-10 years, so it will be expected that there will be a lot of talent specially in the contact games. Also football and archery are our traditional games and in boxing and taekwando we have a lot of talent," Doma Tshering, Secretary, State level PYKKA Competition.

With the mission duration of 10 years, nearly 607 districts, 6373 block panchayats and 250,000 village panchayats in the country will be covered under the scheme.

States will be provided with an annual competition grant, annual acquisition grant, one time capital grant, technical assistance and capacity building services.

Players will also be given prize money in competitions to keep them motivated. (ANI)