PESHAWAR: The much-awaited third round of the National Youth Carnival Mega Challenge-2017 will be held from Dec 9 to 12 here wherein 2,000 students from across the country would compete in 30 different events. The carnival is the biggest event arranged for the country’s youth carrying the prize money of over Rs5 million.

Sharing details with mediapersons on Wednesday, Sports, Tourism and Youth Affairs Department secretary Mohammad Tariq Khan said that arrangements had been made for holding the mega event. “I visited various venues inside the Peshawar Sports Complex and inspected the final touches being given to selected venues,” he said.

The official said that this time the department had widened the pool of the NYC by involving maximum number of students of the colleges, public and private sector universities and 11 madressahs of the country.

The provincial government, he said, had announced its youth policy and Rs1 billion had been allocated for the youth development and activities. He said that NYC was introduced in 2013 and now the number of youth participation had reached 35,000.

The sports and youth affairs secretary said that trials had been organised in 121 universities, postgraduate colleges and madressahs wherein 13,000 students in KP alone went through the trials. He said that of them they had short-listed 1,500 competitors in the first phase and now in the last round a total of 600 position-holders in all 30 categories would represent KP in NYC.

Likewise, over 15,000 participants from other parts of the country went through trials and among them 1,000 position-holders were coming to Peshawar to be part of NYC. The aim of the carnival is to provide opportunities to the students to come and explore their hidden talent, he said.

Mr Tariq lauded the organisers for regularly holding NYC. “We want the youth of KP and the country to establish links between them for peace-building and youth development. The youth will compete this time in the events, including drama, thematic art, painting, calligraphy, short film, Urdu, English and Pashto singing, cultural dance, music band, Qiraat, spelling bee, sell-it, Na’at, English and Urdu declamation, Urdu and Pashto essay writing, Bait Bazi, quiz competition, business plan, ad making, standup comedy, extraordinary/unique talent, console gaming (FIFA-2017), chess and spot photography. Education expo, city visits, etc will also be part of the NYC.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2017