The Divisional Level, which is the fifth stage of the Punjab Youth Festival 2012 will roll into action from October 8 (Monday) throughout the province. Although the Sunday was an off day from the Festival events but there were hectic activity on the day as all the volunteers and the organisations attached in the organization of the Festival were given a reception in an Orientation Conference at the Punjab Stadium.
Deputy Speaker Rana Mashhood Ahmed Khan presided over the gathering of around 27000 youngsters while Secretary Sports Haroon Ahmed Khan and Director General Sports Board and Youth Affairs Punjab Usman Anwar were also present on the occasion.
Meanwhile, as part of the Festival, a marathon race was held at Faisalabad in which apart from general public athletes of army and navy also took part while Rana Sanaullah was the chief guest of the bull cart race at Faisalabad where Toba Tek Singh’s pair of bulls won the first prize while other participants were awarded certificates. The day started with a musical show of the children at the Alhamra Arts Council where national songs, dress show, aerobics dance and social drama were presented by the children of different schools and societies.
In the meanwhile, the registration in the general category of the festival’s fifth stage is continuing and the activities in the Divisional Level will formally start from today. According to Usman Anwar this level of activity carries the prize money of Rs 5,740,500 and its events will be contested among 23 sectors of the society and competitions will be held in 224 sports and general events.
He said that the general public sector includes individual, family and sports events, education sector is divided into male and female categories and have elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities to compete while there is also a rural sector and skill sector have Tevta and Press club, bar association corporate and departments are also included in this level of the festival. This level also has engineering and IT sector.
“In all 26 sports events includes arm wrestling, athletics (eight categories), badminton, billiard, cricket, tug or war, volleyball, bodybuilding (three categories), football, weightlifting (three categories), basketball, chess, hockey, Kabaddi, mat wrestling (three categories), mud wrestling (three categories), table tennis, karate (three categories), taekwondo (three categories), tent pegging, baseball, boxing (three categories), marathon powerlifting (three categories), and rugby have been slated for competitions,” he added.
“The non-sporting events of Divisional Level are naat khani, qirat, cooking, painting, pet competition, photography, poetry, mushaira, milli naghme, songs, calligraphy, dress designing, stitching, handicraft, family dressing, healthy baby competition, kitchen gardening, drama, short film, street art, street art theatre.
“Debate, essay writing, millinaghme, naat khani, painting and qirat are in the schools sector while handicraft and science models have been added in the secondary school section while female schools will also compete in cooking, cultural models, dress show and painting. “On the other hand the engineering sector would show their skills in game development, windows phone development, computer software, blended learning teaching competition and project based learning through Alice.
“Apart from the above events there will be electrical, electronic, mechanical including automobile and architecture,” he said.
“The events also include competitions among blinds in eight athletics categories, wheel chair race and bench press competition,” he added.
“In several of the competitions there will be competitors from Sports and Youth Development Councils of the Neighbourhood and Villege Level, Union Council, Tehsil and District levels to come face to face with the participants of the Divisional phase,” he maintained. The fifth level will conclude on October 13 and afterwards the Provincial Level will start from October 17.
