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| Imply Sports through policy intervention for positive engagement of Youth in J&K | | | Aman Sharma
Positive engagement of young human resource is a challenge especially with enticing vices emerging in the society in abundance. The problem is even more pressing in the state of Jammu and Kashmir for obvious reasons and the government of the day is fraught with a serious challenge of not only curbing its youth from falling prey to the vices but also from getting disgruntled and misguided from the national mainstream.
Initiatives like Nehru Yuva Kendras (NYK), National Service Scheme (NSS), and National Cadet Corps (NCC) have done their bit in this direction, but sports have by far been the greatest and most effective medium that has helped us in our endeavour to meet over objective, but more needs to be done.
Two decades of turmoil in the state has impelled successive governments to focus their attention onto issues of other pressing compulsions rather than sports and in the process, Sports and other issues of the youth got marginalized in the priority of the government. We were relegated in terms of improving and building our sports infrastructure to keep pace with other states of the country. The rural areas were neglected in particular and even scanty sports facilities could not be made available to the rural youth, in the process depriving them of opportunities of development.
We understand that sports could be strongest medium of negating the element of alienation amongst the youth of our state as sports brings together sportspersons from across the country and J&K and give them an opportunity to understand each other. Organization of national level events in the state and participation of athletes from J&K in similar events elsewhere in the country has immense effect on the sentiment of the youth. However, there is a need to percolate such initiatives to the panchayat and block level as well.
Identification of such disciplines which can be started with minimal infrastructural requirements and their initiations at Panchayat and Block level with healthy competitions and identification of talent which can then be screened for better training can go a long way in not only positive engagement of rural youth, but also identification of virgin talent for better sports performance at the national level. Proper implementation of central schemes likes PYKKA (Panchyata Yuva Khel Krira Abhiyan) and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Yojna can help in transforming such ideas into reality.
In the urban and suburban sector, there is a dire need of improving the existing infrastructure to bring it at par with the other states and also create new one to avail such infrastructure to the population in sub urban areas coming up near the capital cities. There is a need to incorporate in the Municipal Act and building laws governing mass housing projects that ample sports infrastructure is made available in the new colonies and housing societies. Incorporations need also to be made in the industrial policy of the state to ensure participation of the corporate sector in promotion of sports and youth development programs. Industrial houses enjoying tax holidays in the state may be brought into the gamut through policy intervention and they may be asked to sponsor outstanding sportsmen for international participation, provide incentives to eligible sportsmen through employment generation, help in organization of inter district, inter university and inter college championships etc. and several other ways under corporate social responsibility.
Jammu and Kashmir has been bestowed with immense talent for various sports as the youth of the state have superior parameters required for better sports performance than many other regions of the country. While Valley has immense potential for games like adventure sports, winter sports, water sports besides Football and Cricket, Youth from Jammu region have excelled in Olympic disciplines like Athletics, Handball, Wushu, Boxing, Basketball, Badminton etc. The Ladakh region of the state has special talent for combat games, archery and other endurance events.
State has recently inked an MoU with the Sports Authority of India under which STC has been set up in Jammu, with an extension centre in Srinagar, however, this is just a beginning and state needs to seek larger participation of SAI in the state for raising better infrastructure to enable us to engage more and more youth constructively into the national mainstream through sports.
--Author is a Senior Basketball Coach in Sports Authority of India, can be contacted at [email protected]
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