Govt apathy
By Our Reporter
Shillong: The poor showing by schools from Garo Hills region at the State-level Subroto Mukherjee Cup has raised a major question on whether the State Government is doing enough to promote sporting activities in the region especially among the young group.
It is learnt that for the past 21 years there has been no school from Garo Hills region which has represented the State at the national-level Subroto Mukherjee Cup.
The last school from Garo Hills to do so was Rongrengiri Government Secondary School way back in 1990.
Giving an insight into why sporting activities have not grown in Garo Hills as desired, a senior government official, on condition of anonymity, told The Shillong Times on Tuesday that the main factor which has led to this situation is because there has been no initiative towards promoting sports activities among the young age group in Garo Hills region.
While maintaining that the blame should not only be put on the State Government, he said that the district sports associations are also responsible for not doing anything towards promotion of sports among the younger group.
“As it stands today, there are sports events and tournaments only for the senior age group,” the government official added.
He said that the only sports activity for the younger generation is the annual Subroto Mukherjee Cup which is being organised in all the three districts of Garo Hills.
“The fact remains that there is no dearth of talent in Garo Hills. In terms of physical strength, the Garos has an advantage when compared to people from other parts of the State,” the official said, while adding that the only thing which is lacking is the correct exposure for the young talents in Garo Hills.
What is more concerned is that with the passage of time the number of schools participating at the State-level Subroto Mukherjee Cup has seen a gradual decline, he said.
“This is clearly an indication that even the authorities of the various schools are not too keen to participate in this event after seeing the dismal performance of their respective schools in the past years,” the official added.
Meanwhile, it is learnt that with the deterioration law and order situation in Williamnagar, East Garo Hills, only eight schools participated in the tournament this year. The number of participants was significantly higher last year with 24 schools.
It has also been informed that the school which qualified to represent East Garo Hills at the State-level tournament had to seek police escort to come to Ri-Bhoi district to participate in the event.
One major factor, which has proved to be a big letdown for Garo Hills is that there is only one proper ground (the MP Stadium in Tura) in the whole region.
It seems that the State Government has no intention of promoting sports in the region since it has failed to allocate funds for developing sport infrastructures, which is crucial to growth of sports.