February 02, 2007	Friday	Muharram 13, 1428

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KARACHI, Feb 1: The Sindh Governor, Dr. Ishratul Ibad Khan, has said the province would leave no stone unturned in making the 30th National Games in Karachi a success. The biennial games return to its birthplace after almost a decade.

The governor held out this assurance to a two-member delegation of Sindh Olympic Association (SOA) which called on him at the Governor House the other day to apprise him of the developments pertaining to the games. The Governor is the patron-in-chief of the games organising committee.

The delegation comprised SOA president, Fakir S. Ayazuddin and secretary, Ahmad Ali.

The SOA chief proposed new dates of April 3 to 8 for hosting the games to the Governor for his approval. Earlier, the games were slated to take place from Feb 11 to 17 but were postponed on the request of organisers.

Ayazuddin also made a presentation of the games logo to the Governor who approved it on the spot. The SOA now plans to formally launch the logo soon.

Regarding financial aspects, Ayazuddin informed the Governor that PST would be providing Rs20 million for the event while another Rs5 million is expected from the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB).

The SOA official also apprised the patron-in-chief about his negotiations with a multi-national bank who are willing to come forward as one of the sponsors to share the burden.

The Governor commended the efforts of SOA and has decided to convene a high level meeting at the earliest in this regard.

In the meantime, the SOA has decided to disburse Rs 0.9 million equally among its 30 affiliated units on Feb 7 to start training camps for the athletes.

In another related development, Sindh Sports Minister, Qamar Mansoor, who is also chairman organising committee for the games, dashed to Lahore on Wednesday on a short visit to discuss matters related to the games with the POA officials. “Yes, I had gone to Lahore and discussed issues related to staging the National Games with POA high ups,” Qamar told Dawn on Thursday night.

He has also convened a meeting of secretaries of provincial sports associations at his office on Friday at 5pm.