ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) on Monday approved a Rs16 million budget for the fourth edition of Asian Beach Games, in which a 65-member Pakistan contingent will participate in eight disciplines.

A meeting of Executive Committee was held here with Federal Minister of Inter-Provincial Coordination Riaz Hussain Pirzada in the Chair.

It was attended by Pakistan Olympic Association (POA) chief Lt. Gen. Arif Hassan, Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) president Kaleem Imam, Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) secretary Amir Nawaz, Pakistan Handball Federation (PHF) president Mohammad Shafiq and IPC secretary Ejaz Chaudhry amongst others.

The meeting approved the squad and budget for participating in the Games, slated to be held in Phuket, Thailand from Nov 14.

“We have approved a 65-member squad and Rs16 million budget for Asian Beach Games,” said PSB director-general Akhtar Nawaz Ganjera.

He informed the Pakistan will participate in the kabaddi, handball, wrestling, squash, bodybuilding, sailing, windsurfing and jiu-jitsu events at the Games.

“We are expecting gold from the kabaddi squash and wrestling teams,” he added.

Amir Nawaz said the PSF had intended to send the senior team for the Games but due to the event clashing with the World Open, senior players weren’t available.

“The junior team will take part,” Amir told Dawn. “Emerging youngster Abbas Shaukat [who played well at the recently-concluded CAS International Championship] will take part at the Games.

“The other four proposed players are Rifat Khan, Sumaira Anjum, Asim Khan and Israr Ahmed.”

The members of the meeting reviewed the dismal performance of Pakistan’s athletes at this year’s Commonwealth and Asian Games.

The participants of the meeting also requested Kaleem Imam to review the sports policy so that some necessary amendments could be made into it. Kaleem, after going through the sport policy, will report back to the committee in next few days.

Our Sports Reporter from Lahore adds: A three-member committee was formed by the PSB Executive Committee to submit a report on the resumption of construction work on the two Sports Complexes, which were being built in Quetta and Karachi but the construction work was halted five years back under mysterious circumstances.

The committee comprises Arif Hasan, Pakistan Hockey Federation (PHF) secretary Rana Mujahid and PSB joint-secretary Mirza Javed.

The work on another complex in Lahore has also stopped but the executive body has decided to form the committee only for the complexes of Quetta and Karachi.

Meanwhile, Rana Mujahid told Dawn that the federal sports minister had hailed the performance of the Pakistan team at the Asian Games, where it claimed a silver medal.

“Although we couldn’t retain our title, the team fought well at the Asiad and the performance was satisfactory under the prevailing circumstances,” he said.

Rana added that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had also invited the national team to honour it.

“The function was to be held in Islamabad on Tuesday but it has been deferred till Nov 19,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2014