Ajay Maken calls for inculcating sports culture among schoolchildren

New Delhi, Nov 18 (ANI): Sports Minister Ajay Maken today underlined the need to promote sports culture among schoolchildren.

Addressing a conference here, Maken said that based on recent data available, it was necessary to raise the level of sports awareness among the country's school -going population.

"It is just a change of mindset which is required. Sports in the school curriculum, marks for sports as some people say, are something, which has become a must now. From our side, we are trying to work through the PICA scheme and through 'come and play' scheme by the Sports Authority of India, we are trying to somehow inculcate a sports culture among the youngsters, among the school- going children in our country. But we need to do much more," he said.

Maken also pointed out that several districts in India remained backward and due to prevalence of militancy, it was becoming extremely difficult for the youth from such areas to excel in sports.

"In 643 districts of India, we have backward and left wing extremism affected areas. But what is worrisome is that the anti- social elements are targeting the youth from poor families to get their recruits. In the backward regions of our country the main concerns are education, health care, livelihood and jobs. These are the factors hindering the mainstream of our youth in these regions," he said.

He also said that the sports ministry has taken adequate steps to promote sports among the youth as they had launched various schemes and also urged the various sports and youth affairs ministers in states to extend their cooperation.

"On one hand, our youngsters should be physically fit and on the other hand they should be skilled enough to carry forward what they want to do in life. And as Youth Affairs Minister, I can say that you all also being youth affairs ministers from your respective states, you have a lot to do and if you want you can do a lot. We have got from our side the National Service Scheme and the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sangathan scheme. We have the National Youth Corps and all these three different organs, we do the work through the state governments," he added. (ANI)