The Punjab Youth Festival 2012 participation figure in the first level of the extravaganza has on Sunday touched one million mark with the day alone have an involvement of around 300,000 youngsters from 55200 Sports and Youth Development Councils throughout the 36 districts of the provinces.
The figure of participation in the Neighbourhood and Villege level had reached 700,000 on Saturday and the immense interest of the people has made the Sunday a day of festivity. People from all walks of life did not budge an inch or show any reluctance in participation despite heavy rain that hit several parts of the province. Even though Sunday was observed as an Anti-Dengue Day and Sports Board Punjab organized a walk in this regard in the guidance of Sports Secretary Haroon Ahmed Khan, but there was extensive participation of the people in the different events of the festival now being held at the very lower level.
Although activities continued all over Lahore and the province alike, but the main hustle and bustle of the festival was witnessed at Gulshan Ravi football ground where Deputy Speaker Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan, who is the chief organizer of the Festival along with Director General Sports Board and Youth Affairs Punjab Usman Anwar graced the occasion.
Rana Mashhood informed the participants that the interest of people in the festival has reached 10,00,000 figure and it has turned the efforts of the Punjab government into proper festivity. “Even Olympians like Mohammad Saqlain and Naveed Alam are also taking part in the action. While international weightlifter and power lifter Aqeel Butt and Pakistan’s Olympian athlete Shabana have also shown interest in the PYF,” he added.
He further said that he expects a huge jump in public response to the Festival activity when the complete data is collected from all over Punjab. On the occasion, the Olympians, Saqlain and Alam had an arm wrestling contest in the presence of Rana Mashhood and Usman Anwar.
The day’s activity also involved cycle stunt from a young girl and a boy, who rode their bicycle through a tire while holding it in their own hand. They planned the stunt while burning the tire but heavy rain prevented them from performing with the fire.
In Union Council 142, Al-Bilal Township, only cricket tape ball match was held in which Uhanaabad 1 beat Uhanaabad 2 by 13 runs. The event was later stopped due to heavy rain due to the slippery outfield.
However, in Union council 11 and Union council 12, Ravi Town indoor activity including arm wrestling and badminton competitions were held and UC 12 won the team event 2-1.
In Union Council 127 and 128, cricket tape ball matches between E Block Model Town A was held and the former team took the match by 32 score while in Badminton, G Block, Model Town A beat G block Model Town B 20-9.
In the Arm Wrestling event, Nazeer Masih in 90 KG won the match, Imran in 70 KG and Naveed Khalid in 65 KG were the winners.
In Billiard, Barket Market block 16, Ahsan Rizwan won the match from Khawar Noman Qureshi. In Tug of War, block number 7 Kota Pind A won over Kota Pind B 2-0.
Similarly, there were hectic activity in other districts of the province with Chakwal, Bhakkar, Faisalabad, Tobe Tek Singh, Vehari, Dera Ghazi Khan, Muzaffargarh have active participation.
In Chakwal 4734 participated in seven events from 58 UCs, 7785 took part in 18 events from 22 UCs in Bhakkar while Faisalabad touché 10241 mark of participation from 469 blocks of 122 UCs and 3250 winners.
Around 6000 took part in different sports events in Tobe Tek Singh and here majority of participation was in athletics, Vehari got 19522’s invovelemnt in all the nine events of the first level of the Festival while Dera Ghazi Khan had 13784 people in line of participation and Muzaffargarh have active participation of 61470.