Excelsior Sports Correspondent
SAMBA, May 22: While, there is a severe heat wave going on across the country and many districts of Jammu division are struggling badly because of scorching heat, due to which the Education Department in Jammu has reduced the school timings for all the children up to higher education in Jammu zone to 12 noon.
On the other hand, the Department of Youth, Services and Sports is engaged in organizing sports competitions for small children even in temperatures of 42 to 44 degrees.
This is not happening for the first time, this has been happening for the last several years. These days, similar sports competitions are being organized in different districts of Kashmir division, but the weather there is favourable but in most of the districts of Jammu division, the weather is unfavourable, in such a situation, the officials of the Sports Department should think appropriately about it.
Rani Suchet Singh Stadium located in Samba is built on the banks of river Basantar, hence there is a pavilion made of iron sheets in the stadium and apart from that there is no arrangement for sitting there due to the fear of children falling ill.
At the same time, the parents of the children are also very upset with the functioning of the Sports Department. They have appealed to the higher officials of the department several times but nothing has been done.
Sports competitions of Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, Wrestling, Volleyball, Badminton and Table Tennis were organized for children in the age group of 14 and 17 years at Samba’s Rani Suchet Stadium from Tuesday in which more than 600 children from across the district participated. took. In the scorching heat, some games were played in the indoor stadium built nearby, while other games were played in the open field. On Tuesday, 390 boys from across the district participated while on Wednesday around 316 girls participated.
In such a scorching heat, on one hand, the Education Department has reduced the school timings so that no child gets sick and on the other hand, the Sports Department is busy in organizing sports. If any child gets sick, who will be responsible for it.
“The administration should take strict cognizance and protect children from this heat wave,” said Mandeep Sambyal, former president of Samba Bar Association.
“If the national level competition is to be organized by the School Federation of India in the months of October and November, they have plenty of time for this. If the Education Department can think about the children in this heat, then the Sports Department should also take cognizance of this. Sports competitions should be postponed for a few days,” said Rahul Sambyal.
While justifying their decision to hold the games in scorching heat, Dharamveer Singh, District Officer Youth, Service and Sports, Samba said, “National level competition is started by the School Federation of India, for this we have to select the team for which the calendar is prepared before the Director’s office and accordingly, we have to organize the sports competition. One has to start from the level, after that there is zone level, district level and then divisional level competitions and then finally they send children to the national level to play the several games.”
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