NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will launch the first Khelo India School Games at the Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium on Wednesday.
The week-long inaugural edition, which concludes on February 8, will be an Under-17 event where athletes have been invited to participate across 16 disciplines: Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Boxing, Football, Gymnastics, Hockey, Judo, Kabaddi, Kho-Kho, Shooting, Swimming, Volleyball, Weightlifting, and Wrestling.
There will be 199 Gold, 199 Silver and 275 Bronze medals at stake. The Khelo India programme has been introduced to revive the sports culture in the country at the grass-root level.
It is expected to help scout young talent from the schools in various disciplines and groom them as future champions. Talented players identified in priority sports disciplines by a High-Powered Committee will be provided annual financial assistance of Rs 500,000 per annum for eight years.
Star Sports will telecast the Games on three of its channels – Star Sports 1, Star Sports-HD and its free-to-air sports channel, Star Sports First. In addition, the Games will be available on its digital platform, Hotstar.
Meanwhile, the Khelo India pledge, launched by the Sport Minister Col.(Retired) Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, has now crossed the one-million mark.
This follows the successful launch of the Khelo India Anthem, which reached more than 200 million fans within two days of its launch.
The Khelo India pledge, now taken by more than 1.1 million people, is among the initiatives to popularise the Games, which seeks to identify sportspersons at a very young age and develop them into future champions for India on international platforms.
The Khelo India pledge aims to invoke the nation’s sporting spirit by urging fans and followers to support and encourage sports in every way possible.
It is India’s pledge to become part of a revolution that will find nation’s budding sport talent from the grassroots and offer them a platform to rise and shine at the global level.
The Khelo India programme was launched by former Sports Minister Vijay Goel but was later taken forward by his successor Rathore.
The school games will be held at multiple venues in Delhi. The Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Indira Gandhi Stadium Complex are among the venues where the games will be held.
