flying sikhs Milkha Singh Having labored as Deputy Director Sports and later Director Sports and Education in Punjab Government for greater than 30 years after retirement from athletics profession, not many know that Singh was instrumental in making sports activities interval obligatory in each faculty in Punjab. took an energetic position. Singh, who retired from the put up in 1991, had joined the Punjab Sports Department in 1961 on the insistence of the then Punjab Chief Minister Pratap Singh Kairon and left the Indian Army to serve Punjab.
“During my time in the Punjab Sports Department, a policy I started in the early 1970s was to make sports periods compulsory in every school in Punjab. I knew to my horror that since the end of the school days came my period, it was the easiest. I sent urgent appeals to principals and PT instructors across the state to ensure that students participate in this period,” wrote Singh in his 2013 memoir The Race of My Life.
While the then Punjab CM Pratap Singh Kairon needed to request the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to permit Indian Army officers to permit Singh’s early retirement and becoming a member of the Punjab authorities, Singh initially moved from Delhi to Chandigarh a 12 months earlier. Will drive each day. He determined to calm down in Chandigarh. Apart from beginning sports activities wings in faculties of Punjab, Singh may also give you the thought of summer time camps for the sportspersons of the state. “The objective of opening the sports wing was to reach out to the talented youth at the village and district level to encourage them to take up sports as a career. Our efforts were rewarded with players like hockey star Ajit Pal Singh, Surjit Singh and players like Ajaib Singh and Mohinder Singh Gill coming from the sports wing,” writes Singh.
Apart from taking the assistance of the military in organizing the camp in Shimla, Singh additionally took the assistance of the then Jammu and Kashmir CM Farooq Abdullah in arranging summer time camps for the sportspersons within the hill state.
Singh wrote in his article, “The summer camps follow a strict schedule and my role in the camps was to meet and inspire each and every individual and convince them that only hard work, dedication, will power and discipline is the key to their success. will lead.” Memoirs The Race of My Life.
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With inputs from TheIndianEXPRESS
