GUJRANWALA: Promotion of healthy activities like sports seems a dream gone sour in the city of Gujranwala that once boasted of being an abode of all sorts of games.

The city has long been deprived of the tag of the sports city due to decline in games as today only 0.5 per cent population (not more than 20,000 people out of four million) is involved in games, professionally or otherwise.

Non-provision of stipends and free sport gears by the government, high cost of games and missing playgrounds are stated to be major obstacles to the promotion of sports.

Once known as a city of wrestlers having arenas in every nook and corner, Gujranwala today has not more than four soiled arenas with hardly 200 wrestlers turning up. No mat-arena is available for doing practice for international matches and now wrestling championship venues have been shifted to other cities.

The Regional Cricket Headquarters too has been shifted from Gujranwala to the Sialkot city. Around 500 players hailing from 31 registered clubs have no place to do practice and this makes youngsters crowd streets and children’s playgrounds to play cricket, football and other sports on weekly and public holidays.

A proposed sports complex on GT Road has long been awaited and it is a pity that no international cricket match has been played at the Jinnah Stadium for the last five years.

A survey conducted by Dawn reveals that 300 hockey players of 20 clubs and 200 football players of 15 clubs do practice in a mini-stadium, the only playground available to them.

The Athletics Association has no player, the Karatey Association has only 20 and 50 players of three Kabbadi clubs and 200 players of 14 volleyball clubs are confined to rural areas. The Wusu Association has 60 players in 15 clubs while the Rounders Federation is at an incipient stage with 20 players.

Forty players of two basketball clubs practice in the grounds of the Government College, Satellite Town, and the Divisional Public School.

Chaudhry Muhammad Yaseen, the president of District Athletics Association, told Dawn that the game was on its last legs due to indifference of the government. The association, he said, was trying to keep the game alive through a few school students.

A similar view was shared by District Karate Association President Maqsood Ahmad.

Goga Pehlwan, a renowned wrestler, told Dawn that the cost of daily meals for wrestlers was too high and owing to a lack of stipends, the game was on the decline. He said people usually looked down upon wrestlers for being involved in a substandard game and only the descendents of famous ‘pehlwans’ were keeping its name alive.

Dr Ijaz Siddiqui, secretary-general of the Rounders Federation of Pakistan, told this correspondent that Rounders was the first outdoor game being promoted among women and a lack of moral and financial support by the government had prolonged the way of its achievements.

According to Fareed Qureshi, the secretary-general of District Cricket Association, a lack of playgrounds and lethargic attitude of the district administration towards promotion of the game discouraged the players.

He said emerging academic institutions and new housing schemes had obliterated most of the playgrounds in the city, depriving the youngsters of an avenue to healthy entertainment. Housing societies were bound to have graveyards and parks, but not playgrounds.

District Officer (Sports) Farooq Aziz told Dawn that the administration had many restraints and it could not extend financial assistance to all clubs in view of emergence of unregistered ones. However, it was helping the genuine associations out and trying to promote sports.

He criticised the Pakistan Cricket Board’s policies, saying: “If international cricket matches are banned in Gujranwala due to a lack of five-star hotels, why such matches are being arranged in Sheikhupura”. The decision to shift the regional cricket headquarters to Sialkot and a ban on international matches here was denying income to the local administration to help promote games, he said.

Saying that the city had produced many sportsmen over the years, he stressed that more talent could be nurtured provided the government made available stipends and free sport gears.