KARACHI, Nov 24: The secretary of the Pakistan Olympic Association (POA), Abdul Khaliq Khan, said on Monday that the sub committee of the Senate Standing Committee for Sports has submitted its recommendations to the Ministry of Sports pertaining to amendments in the national sports policy.

“The proposals were put forward after the POA president, Lt. Gen (retd) Syed Arif Hassan, gave a presentation before the committee on Sept 4 in which he alleged that it lacked certain issues which needed to be sorted out.

He said the POA chief drew the attention of the committee that all stake holders were not consulted while drafting the policy and therefore it should be revised.

The POA official said the country’s sports system requires a lot of improvement if the nation wants to be on the medal podium in higher-level global competitions. “The present sports scenario in the country is highly deplorable,” he remarked.

Quoting figures, he said 10 percent of the world population participates in sports and healthy recreation activities.

As far as Pakistan is concerned, 17 million of the total 170 million people are sportspersons be it male and female, young and old who features in sports at all levels he said adding that 80 percent of the 10 percent belong to educational institutions.

Khaliq, a former international spiker, said it was need of the hour to improve the existing system by motivating youth towards sports in terms of offering them suitable incentives both in cash and kind.

He disclosed that instead of going after all sports events, efforts should be diverted to choose couple of disciplines after identifying the talent at school level and master the youngsters.

He agreed that long distance gold medals at the Olympics are synonymous with Kenya and Jamaican athletes.

Summing up, he said, education and sports should go together for the betterment of society through in-built mechanism.