ISLAMABAD, May 27: The head of the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) on Friday welcomed the enhancement of the organisation’s annual budget from Rs 92 million to Rs 250 million and said it will definitely help in improving sporting standards. “It will give us the freedom to run our programmes in a much more efficient and effective manner and will also benefit sports in many other ways,” Brig. Arif Mahmud Siddiqui told Dawn.

It was under the specific instructions of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf that the budget enhancement came about with this being the first instance that such a substantial sum has been earmarked for sports.

The budget allocation means that the grants of some of the national federations will see a three-fold increase in their grant-in-aid.

“The federations doing well and producing results will benefit more than the others who are not delivering,” said Arif while pointing out that financial constraints had been one of the major reasons for deterioration of sports in Pakistan.

“With more money now available, our athletes will have better opportunities for training with the federations being able to run their activities in a fine manner.”

The request for budget enhancement was first made to Gen.Musharraf in October of last year when he was told that it was not possible for PSB to implement its plans with meager financial resources.

Meanwhile officials of leading federations including tennis and volleyball appreciated the government’s decision and said that the PSB should keep performances in mind and do justice while releasing grants.

“Federations that are doing development work and have been producing good results should obviously benefit more than others,” Syed Dilawar Abbas, president of the Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) said.

The Pakistan Davis Cup team recently made to the World Group qualifiers after beating Taiwan and has displayed awesome form in recent months.

“I am not pleading the case of just tennis but what I want is that justice be done.

Federations that have not been delivering should be given specific targets before they are rewarded.”

Muhammad Afzal, secretary of the Pakistan Volleyball Federation (PVF) termed it a great step and also called for a fair dispensation of money and appreciated the government’s decision.

“Volleyball needs really good financial support because our players have been performing well and the PVF despite the paucity of funds has been sending teams abroad to provide the spikers international exposure.”