LAHORE, June 18: Negligence cost the Punjab Sports Department a raise in its annual grant-in-aid. Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi had announced doubling the annual grant from existing Rs18 million in 2003. The department had sent a summary for doubling the grant before the budget for 2004-05 but the government did not increase it.

But for the coming budget, the department could not even send the summary to the finance department. The department woke up when Punjab Olympic Association (POA) secretary Idris Haider Khwaja demanded an increase in its annual grant as announced by the chief minister.

Punjab Sports Minister Naeemullah Khan Shahani referred the POA demand to its secretariat asking about the fate of the grant. The secretariat replied that it had no such file in its custody and no directive had been received from the Punjab government.

When contacted, Punjab Sports Board director general Munawwar Abbas told the correspondent that the department had sent the summary to the chief minister’s secretariat in 2004. Surprisingly the case file had been misplaced.

He said on the directions of the sports minister he had sent a summary, but after the announcement of budget 2005-06. However, he was hopeful the department would get the increase.

He said the department was in dire need of the increase in the grant, otherwise, it would be impossible to organize sports events.

“There is no increase in the grant since 1983 despite devaluation of the currency,” he said.

The director general said Rs1.5 million of the grant was being spent on the salaries of the employees and the rest of the amount was insufficient to meet other expenditures like holding training camps, participation of the Punjab teams in the inter-provincial contest games, issuance of grants to the provincial sports association, the Punjab Olympic Association and to pay the utility bills.

He said besides the annual grant, the department had only one other financial resource — the Iqbal Parks Sports Complex — which had been generating Rs4 million annually.

“Even the Sindh government has increased the annual grant of its sports department to Rs80 million from Rs15 million this year.”

He admitted that the commercialization of the National Hockey Stadium could have saved the department from financial problems. A private party had offered the department Rs2.2 million per month for the commercialization of the stadium.

It would help the department generate Rs20.64 million extra annually.

He said the department’s financial responsibilities would also be increased when it would run a wrestling stadium in the Iqbal Parks Sports Complex which was under construction.