Guwahati (Assam) [India], June 11 : Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday said to develop world-class sporting facilities in every district of the state, his government will spend Rs 1000 crore over the next few years.
"We will spend Rs 1,000 crore over the next few years to develop world-class sporting facilities in every district of the state," Sarma said.
The Assam chief minister on Sunday distributed appointment letters to medal winners of 36th National Games and felicitated an expedition team to Mount Kanchenjunga during a programme held at Janata Bhawan in Guwahati.
Sarma said, "To encourage Assam's youth to pursue sports as a career opportunity, we took a decision that those who win medals in National/ Asian/ Commonwealth Games or Olympics will immediately get government jobs."
"We are working on a mission to make sports an attractive career," Sarma said.
He said, "Drawing inspiration from the Centre's Khelo India Games, we will be organising the Khel Maharan from October this year."
"It will be a 4 tier competition where participants from 27000 villages will participate in 5 games and then proceed to constituency, district and state level," CM Sarma said.
He informed that 229 athletes participated in 21 disciplines at the 36th National Games and 28 of them won medals. "Nineteen of them are already engaged with the Assam government, I am happy to appoint the other 9 athletes today in line with our promise to reward medal winners," he said.
"Mt. Kanchenjunga is the toughest peak to scale. In a first-of-its-kind endeavour, the Assam Mountaineering Association led a team of climbers to the peak & 2 of them scaled it. I'd like to congratulate them and all the other team members of the expedition. Hon'ble Rashtrapati-ji had flagged this expedition and I had the honour to be its Chef-de-Mission. Once again many congratulations to our mountaineers. Assam is proud of your efforts and we hope you inspire many more youngsters," the Assam CM said.
He handed a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to Jayanta Nath and Bhaskar Baruah, who successfully scaled the peak, and Rs 2.5 lakh to Kaushik Das and Sekhar Bordoloi, who narrowly missed out on the final ascent.
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