Vijayawada (Central) legislator Bonda Umamaheswara Rao on Monday said physical fitness would be made compulsory in schools from this academic year and exhorted physical education teachers to remain in schools till 5.30 p.m.
Speaking at the inauguration of the annual summer camp at Indira Gandhi Municipal Stadium here, he emphasized the importance of physical exercise in the sedentary world and advised parents to involve their children in sports and games.
He said Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu had allotted more than ₹200 crore for sports in the budget and several steps were being initiated for the infrastructure development.
Mr. Rao said that those who excelled in sports would be given preference in higher education and also in Central and State government jobs.
Mayor Koneru Sridhar said that there were 105 municipal schools in the city with 23,000 students. “Out of which 11 players were selected for various national events. The corporation had borne all the expenditure of their participation and even published their photographs in the corporation official booklet as a measure of appreciation and encouragement”.
He asked the schools to give wide publicity to achievement in sports as was done for academic excellence. “We received grants from the State government for the development of sports and soon an action plan will be prepared,” he said.
He advised the participants who attended the camp to continue their involvement in sports even after the reopening of schools.
New sports policy
State sports coordinator L. Ravindra said that under the new sports policy five per cent quota had been earmarked for boys and six per cent for girls.
Each school was already getting the benefit of ₹5,000 under Sarva Siksha Abhiyan funds and another ₹5,000 was being planned from other funds for all the schools from the next academic year.
He asked the physical education teachers to show extra interest in imparting fitness regimes to the students.
SAAP senior officials P. Ramakrishna and Md. Sirajuddin took part in the function.
