NSC discusses Nat’l Games agenda

Kathmandu, January 13:

The National Sports Council (NSC) and the representatives of the national sports associations held a discussion on various aspects of the upcoming fifth National Games here today.

The agenda of the meeting, chaired by NSC member secretary Jeevan Ram Shrestha, included the probable venues for the district, region and national level tournaments, number of players and events, referees and judges, publication of rules and regulations.

The NSC Board Meeting on January 10 had decided to include 32 sports — Squash, Karate, Taekwondo, Wushu, Basketball, Body Building, Chess, Cycling, Billiards and Snooker, Full Contact Karate, Kho-Kho, ITF Taekwondo, Boxing, Athletics, Badminton, Table Tennis, Cricket,

Football, Lawn Tennis, Hockey, Volleyball, Kabaddi, Weightlifting, Shooting, Gymnastics, Swimming, Handball, Judo, Archery, Wrestling, Soft Tennis and Golf — in the Games, slated for April 6-12. The NSC also organised a meeting of the sports officials on Sunday and Monday.

“We focused discussion on 16 disciplines today and we will meet on Thursday for the next 16 disciplines,” said member secretary Shrestha. “We explored on various aspects including the possibilities of organising the tournaments in districts and number of players and events,” said member secretary Shrestha.

“We are planning to include maximum number of players but at the same time we will not allow the players to represent their regions where infrastructure are not available,” said added Shrestha. “There is no point giving quotas to regions where there is no infrastructure,” he said. “Players from those regions will get opportunities to fight for their places from the centre through selection tournaments,” he clarified. Shrestha also said that the players belonging to the departmental teams — Tribhuvan Army Club, Nepal Police Club and Nepal APF Club — would not be allowed to participate from their regions.

NSP meeting held:

KATHMANDU: The first meeting of the National Sports Policy (NSP) working committee passed its plans and working procedures on Tuesday. The 28-member committee was formed under the convenorship of Nepal Olympic Committee (NOC) President Dhruba Bahadur Pradhan by the Youth and Sports Ministry to prepare the final draft of the Sports Policy in three months. The working committee decided to divide its plans in three phases. In the first phase, the committee will prepare the preliminary concept paper, while the second phase include collection of views from various sectors and organise six seminars in different places. In the third phase, the committee will finalise the draft and make it public. The meeting also formed a nine-member Work Execution Committee. Apart from Pradhan, others in the committee are Sitaram Maskey, Ajar Manandhar, Purendra Lakhe, Geeta Rana, Hom Bahadur Baruwal, Ramesh Khanal, Jayendra Chand and Dr Prakash Pradhan, who was named the spokesperson of the committee. — HNS