Villagers high on sports

A 70-year-old woman, Pritam Kaur, was doing excercise at the open gymnasium at a sports park at Mullanpur Dakha village on Thursday. She was accompanied by two elderly women Paramjit Kaur (62) and Inderjit Kaur (73), who were performing other fitness regimes.

This is one of the sports parks of Dakha constructed in over 7 acres in the village. The Mullanpur Dakha constituency has 70 such lush green parks where villagers have access to various high-end sports facilities for cricket, basketball, volleyball, hockey, running tracks, open gym, hurdles nets etc, with people of all age groups have been accessing this facility free of cost.

The brainchild and dream project of SAD (B) MLA from the Dakha constituency Manpreet Singh Ayali, these 70 sports parks were built between 2015 and 2016 at a cost of over Rs 40 crore when Akali Dal was at the helm of Punjab. Even after the change of guard in Punjab, the Congress ruled the state from 2017 to 2022 and now the Aam Aadmi Party is at the helm, these sports parks are well-maintained that too without the help of any fixed financial assistance from the state government or panchayats. Villagers have formed village committees, youth clubs and members make contributions to fund the expenses of the maintenance.

A few sports parks are solely adopted by NRIs. Like in Shekhupura village, NRI Jasvir Singh from Brampton Canada has been funding the complete maintenance of the park.

“Before 2015, the Mullanpur constituency had no such beautiful spiralling sports parks where people of all ages could sit, excercise and play sports. With the construction of such parks, not only youth and children, but elderly like me have become fitness freaks. I with my friends have been visiting the parks twice a day,” said elderly woman Pritam Kaur.

Inderjit Kaur (73) said despite different political affiliations, villagers daily gather in these parks for playing and doing physical excercise.

Dakha MLA Manpreet Ayali told The Tribune that this was his dream project. After becoming MLA he started this project and in less than two years, 70 sports parks were constructed and handed over to the villagers. “I had also spent over Rs 1 crore from my pocket and after the Congress government regained power, I could not get that money back. Still, I have no regret as villagers have become addicted to sports, and fitness with my initiative and youth have shunned drugs,” added Ayali.