Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy launched ‘Aadodam Andhra’, a state-level sports tournament, here on Tuesday.
The 47-day tournament, which will conclude on February 10, aims to encourage and identify talent in cricket, volleyball, badminton and other sports.
Addressing a public meeting, Reddy said, “This magnificent sporting event will mark a milestone. Starting today, it will be held for 47 days till February 10. It will be held in all villages in a festival-like atmosphere. Through this initiative, the state government wants to make People are physically active, identifying talents and warding off diseases, he said.
He added that this will help discover and hone sports talent from villages that are often neglected.
By the time the competitions reach the constituency level, the professional associations will collaborate with the state government and groom the identified talent, Reddy said.
For cricket, Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Andhra Cricket Association (ACA) will be collaborating, and for badminton, international players K Srikanth and PV Sindhu, he said.
According to Reddy, ‘Aadodam Andhra’ will now be an annual event to promote health awareness and identify sports talent.
As many as 34,000 people from across the state have registered to participate in the tournament and the number of spectators is expected to reach about 87,000. The total prize money for the competition is Rs 12 crore.
Reddy also interacted with the participants and inspected some of the sports equipment distributed to them, such as the cricket bat, leather ball, helmet, wicket-keeper’s gloves, volleyball, and badminton racket.
Amid loud cheers from the crowd, Reddy hit some shots on the badminton court and played a short game of volleyball. He also used a cricket bat for some time.
Sports Minister R K Roja said that the Prime Minister instilled enthusiasm in everyone by playing cricket.
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)