Youth festival gets overwhelming response

The Punjab Youth Festival 2012 continued at different venues of the province for the third day running as planned in accordance with the registrations made at different Union Councils for Neighborhood and Village level. The competitions are being held among Sports and Youth Development Councils established for the purpose.
In Lahore alone, 2146 youngsters participated in badminton, cricket, billiard and arm wrestling competitions and 1069 were adjudged winners. Around 218 blocks of 16 union councils took part in 30 events. At UC 134, Mohammad Mukhtar, Mohammad Qasim. Sarfraz were the winners of singles matches of badminton. They beat Mohammad Shoaib and Ramzan. In team event at UC 95, Ali Zain and Mohammad Ali beat Arslan Mustafa and Mohammad Faisal Javed.
At UC 18 badminton competitions were held between block 5 and 3. Irfan of Block 5 beat Idrees of block 3 2-0 with a score of 13-11, 17-11. In the same UC, block 3 beat 1 with 2-0 pull while in volleyball block 3 beat block 6 2-0 with a score of 25-8, 25-12.
Meanwhile, more than 420 events of the Festival were conducted among the 3691 blocks of 772 union councils in 36 districts of the province. The PYF which is being conducted at neighborhood and village level is being held among the UCs that forms the Sports and Youth Development Councils. The events were a bit murky at the beginning due to the conditions but now as it entered into its third day, the interest of the general public is developing rapidly throughout the province.
At Rawalpindi alone 26 UCs of seven tehsils saw their 108 block competing in various sports and other events. Out of the 47 1 participants who took part in 14 events 59 were declared the winners. Likewise, four tehsils of Chakwal district had competitions among 284 blocks of 51 UCs with participation in seven events and from among a total of 1330 participants 394 were the winners.
Similarly in four tehsils of Bhakkar district 1572 people participated in 14 events from eight UCs’ where 65 block had contests and 311 were the winners. Another area of mass participation was Khushab where alone 1080 youngsters participated in five events and out of those 140 were declared winners. Here 32 UCs’ 40 blocks took part in the competitions. In Mianwali there were 670 participants from 22 UCs and 335 were the winners after competitions were held among 28 localities. At Gujranwala, 57 UCs of five tehsils got involved in fierce competitions in which 555 neighbourhoods’ players took part. Here 11 events were held with a participation of 4852 players and in the end there were 282 winners while at Mandi Bahauddin there were 178 winners from among 714 participants of 103 blocks of 43 UCs. In Sheikhupura, there were 18 winners out of 345 participants from 64 areas of 18 councils and Nankana Sahib had 227 winners from among 602 participants of 19 councils. Interestingly there was gigantic response of the youth at Faisalabad where around 23767 youth of different ages showed interest in various sports and other events of the festival. Here 525 blocks of 149 councils participated in 31 events and 3582 took the top honours. Likewise there was great response at Jang with a participation of 808 from 26 councils, Toba Tek Singh 4300 from 82, Bahawalpur 1050 from 30, Bahawalnagar 2312 from 90, Layyah 9614 from 25 and Muzaffargarh 1820 from 58 UCs.