PSB asks sports federations to furnish detail of activities till 30th

ISLAMABAD: Even though the Pakistan Sports Board (PSB) kept on delaying the release of annual grants to the sports federations for almost a year now, a fresh letter has been sent by the PSB to the affiliated units to check their activities’ chart.

The letter sent to the federations on April 13 was the first of its kind since Col (r) Asif Zaman took over the reins of the PSB as director general, the federations have been asked to furnish details of the activities completed by them in the recent past and also share the forthcoming plan of national and international engagements.

The letter also directed the federations to submit the details of expenses incurred on holding national men and women’s championships as well as anticipated expenditures if planned to organise any event before June 30, 2021 as well as the expenditures’ statement on international participation at home and abroad along with performance report and the expected participation expenses till 30th June.”

The federations have been asked to submit all the details by April 30. While South Asian countries’ governments are spending billions on sports promotion in their respective countries and to prepare their athletes for forthcoming 14th SA Games to be held in Pakistan, for the last two and half years there has been a lull in sports activities coming under direct banner of the PSB. Even the federations are finding it hard to use the PSB’s facilities and if they have no other option, sometimes they have to pay for hostel’s expenditures.

Only two federations were lucky enough to get something out of the PSB in recent times. A couple of judokas received percentage of expenditures for their foreign training trips while Pakistan Tennis Federation (PTF) received mere Rs1 million for holding the Davis Cup tie against Japan. The rest of federations including the Pakistan Hockey Federation failed to convince the PSB and the Ministry for Inter-Provincial Coordination regarding the importance of teams’ training for the forthcoming international events that include the Asian Junior Hockey to be played in Bangladesh in July and later the Champions Trophy Hockey also scheduled for Bangladesh in September.

The PHF usually gets Rs3.5 million as normal annual grant which is less than the cost of a single junior team’s trip to a foreign country what to talk about organising camps, payment to the trainers and coaches and players’ dailies at home and during their stay abroad.

Near to the end of last financial year, some federations got part of their annual fee just near to June 30, 2020. Since then no annual grant to any federation has been released.

“As I am new to the system and currently taking briefing from the concerned. We have written a letter to all the federations regarding the activities’ chart till June,” the DG said.