Sports kits handed over to village panchayats to nourish rural talents

Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker distributes sports kits and inaugurates playgrounds to promote sports skills in rural youth.

Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker M. Appavu handed over sports kits worth ₹ 1.50 crore to 204 village panchayats and inaugurated 151 playgrounds in the district on Tuesday, which will be used by the rural youth for perfecting their sports skills.

Mr. Appavu also laid foundation stone for 37 grounds to be established in the rural areas of the district and honoured the winners of the Chief Minister’s Trophy sports meet held recently with cash awards, certificates and medals in the presence of District Collector K.P. Karthikeyan and MP C. Robert Bruce. A total of 2,562 winners received medals, certificates and cash award to the tune of ₹ 51.24 lakh from the Speaker.

Mr. Appavu said the 151 playgrounds had been created at the cost of ₹ 1.18 crore and the 37 playgrounds, for which foundation stone had been laid on Tuesday, would be prepared on an outlay of ₹ 23.60 lakh. Work on the new playgrounds would be completed before October 15 so as to be dedicated to the youth at the earliest.

“A total of 791 persons from Tirunelveli district, who had displayed outstanding skills in the recently held Chief Minister’s Trophy sports meet will represent Tirunelveli district in the State-level meet to be held later,” Mr. Appavu said.

Dr. Karthikeyan said that each ₹ 50,240-worth sports kits had been given to 204 village panchatyats on Tuesday. “Each sports kit has 33 play equipment to be used by the rural youth for fine-tuning and bringing out their sports ability. The rural youth should make use of these sports kits to get employed in government departments as the Tamil Nadu Government has decided to recruit outstanding sportsmen and women for the government departments in a bid to invigorate sports activities in Tamil Nadu,” Dr. Karthikeyan said.

Each sports kit has cricket kit, gym equipment, tennikoit rings, volleyball, football, throw ball, carrom board, silambam stick, chess board, badminton racquet, badminton shuttle etc. Chairman of Tirunelveli District Panchayat V.S.R. Jegadeesh was present.

In Tenkasi, Collector A.K. Kamal Kishore flagged off the vehicles carrying the sports kits to be distributed to 338 village panchayats in the district and handed over the cash awards, medals and certificates to over 2,500 winners of the Chief Minister’s Trophy tournament held recently. MLAs S. Palani Nadar and T. Sadan Thirumalaikumar and others were present.