PESHAWAR: Over 13,000 students from various educational institutions and religious seminaries from across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa competed in the divisional round of the National Youth Carnival at the Qayyum Sports Complex, Peshawar.

The divisional round ended on Wednesday.

Of the 13,000 participants, 1,000 position holders of all the 30 categories would be shortlisted to represent KP in the National Youth Carnival, which would be organised in the first week of December.

In the divisional round the youth participated in competitions, including drama, thematic art, painting, calligraphy, short film, Urdu, English and Pashto singing, cultural dance, music band, Qiraat, Na`at, spelling bee, English and Urdu declamation, Urdu and Pashto essay writing, quiz competition, business plan, ad making, standup comedy, extraordinary/unique talent, console gaming(FIFA-2017), chess and spot photography.

KP Sports Minister Mehmood Khan, who was the chief guest on this occasion, also inaugurated the newly-constructed pavilion of Qayyum Sports Complex. DG youth affairs Asfandyar Khan, provincial DG sports Junaid Khan, CEO LC Usman Khan, additional director NAB Mian Waqar and a large number of youth were also present during the colorful 30 events of the Divisional Round of the carnival.

The sports minister termed the NYC Mega Challenge-2017 the biggest event of the youth carrying a prize money of Rs5 million. After the completion of the divisional round, names of the successful individuals and teams would be announced well before the commencement of the NYC.

He said that this time the pool of NYC had been expanded by involving maximum number of students of the colleges, public and private sectors universities of the KP and rest of the country. He said that the KP government had announced the first-ever youth policy and it had allocated Rs1 billion for youth development.

He said that NYC was one of such activities introduced for the first time by the government of KP in Pakistan in 2013 and now the number of youth participationhad touched 30,000.

He also appreciated NAB for joining hands as the organising partner in NYC.

He said that the government wanted theyouth of KP and rest of the country to establish a link between them for peace building and youth development.