SAHIWAL: The Higher Education Department (HED) is hosting the 3rd Punjab Sports Event 2024-25 from April 8 to 12 in Lahore by collecting Rs9.9m funds from public sector colleges across Punjab, raising concerns among the stakeholders about the funding process.

The event, overseen by the Sports Wing of the Directorate of PublicInstruction (Colleges) Punjab, will have participation from nine divisional winner teams of both boys and girls in 13 sports categories, including karate, kabaddi, wrestling, football, basketball, volleyball, tug of war, badminton, hockey, table tennis, athletics and cricket.

Competitions will be held at various public sector colleges in Lahore, involving over 2,808 students, including 1,179 girl athletes. To collect the funds required for the event, the DPI office categorized public sector colleges across Punjab into four groups based on student enrollment.

Colleges with over 5,000 students were assigned to give Rs100,000, those with 3,000 to 4,999 students Rs50,000, colleges with 1,000 to 2,999 students Rs25,000 and thosewith 200 to 999 students were required to give Rs15,000. These funds are being deposited into a centralized account managed by an apex committee under the Director of Education (Colleges), Lahore.

Initially, the Government Graduate College Diyal Singh, Lahore, was designated to receive these funds; however, a revised decision redirected the amount to the centralized account.

Sources revealed that Dr Syed Ansar Abbas, DPI Colleges, issued a letter (a copy available with Dawn) to divisional directors to ensure the collection of funds from nine divisions. The contributions include Rs999,840 from Bahawalpur, Rs499,920 each from DG Khan and Sahiwal, Rs1,499,760 each fromGujranwala and Faisalabad, Rs1,999,680 from Lahore and Rs999,840 each from Multan, Rawalpindi, and Sargodha divisions.

Punjab Professors and Lecturers Association (PPLA) President Faiza Raana has expressed serious reservations at the funding process, arguing that if the HED aims at making this sports event an annualfeature, it should allocate a dedicated budget rather than withdrawing funds from colleges` sports budgets.

Secondly, she emphasizes, these funds are collected from the students of respective colleges and should not be redirected for selective provincial-level events.

Several college principals also expressed concerns, stating that withdrawing sports funds for thisevent will compromise their own local annual sports events as many colleges operate on limited sports budgets. One principal, who did not want his name to be mentioned, points out that colleges in their own sports events must also cover travel expenses, food and daily allowances for participating players and accompanying faculty, further straining their financial resources.

Faculty members of various colleges have also raised objections to the event, saying that the HED sports event is being held just 20 days ahead of the Intermediate Annual Examinations, scheduled to begin from April 29. They argue that students participating in the sport event would face at least two weeks of academic disruption,resulting in significant preparation loss for their final exams.

A female college teacher from Lahore city expresses apprehensions that hardly any student will participate in upcoming games as exams are just round the corner. Many parents objected over the timing of the upcoming sports event and said they will not send their kids to the annual final ceremony of the event, scheduled to take place at the MAO Graduate College, Lahore, on April 12.

DPI Syed Ansar Abbas was contacted for his version but he asked this correspondent to call Waqas Ahmed, Head of Sports Wing, DPI Colleges. Repeated attempts to contact Waqas Ahmed were made for his comments but the calls and text messages remained unanswered.