DECIDE & ACT TO LET OUR CHILDREN PLAY

                                                                                             - By Milan K Sinha

Playground

"Children and play are synonymous with each other.  I  remember  that  even through the tough life I have seen as a farm  labourer's   daughter,  play  was never far away from  all the work and struggle we went through" -- says  M.C. Mary Kom, the  Bronze medal winner in  recently  concluded  London 2012 Olympics. Actually, she was expressing her  dissatisfaction  on  lack of  playing space for children of the country.During the course of  her visit to various parts of the  country  in connection with her medal winning ceremony, she  could  observe  that  the children are forced to play on the roads risking their life, particularly  due  non availability  of open space for playing. Very right she is, as we  have  had  very  little  concern  for  ensuring  that  our children have adequate playing space where they can play, enjoy & develop like a normal human being. And this is one major reason of the pathetic state of our sports except of course Cricket, which resulted in our poor performance in international sports meet including Olympics.  We don't even care to honour the age old proverb ,"All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". Do you know:

• India's population upto the age of 18 years is 40 % of its total population of 1200 million i.e. huge 48 crores.
• Only about 50% of our children between the age of 6 years to 14 years go to school.
• Not more than 10% of one million primary schools have play grounds worth the name.
• Even the highly expensive private school don't bother to have play space in their schools and if at all some space is earmarked, playing games is not in the priority list of such schools.
• The regulatory machinery in all states  is more or less highly apathetic towards this issue.
• Even the public parks and playgrounds, though in slender numbers, are either gradually  being captured by unscrupulous elements of society or in existence in very bad shape hygienically.

              The list is indicative and not exhaustive.The  real issue, however,  is : how & when we as a country would woke up to arrest this serious trend and start addressing the issue with enthusiasm, commitment and alacrity. To make a small beginning, the following initiatives can be taken at community level:

• Identify the existing parks & playing space to start using it by organising regular sports activities.
• Parents especially mothers must start spending some quality time with their child in nearby parks/play grounds. 
• All private schools must be convinced by parents of the studying children for making provision of play space in the school & have regular offs for playing different games.
• Voluntary Organisations, Financial institutions, Corporate houses, big business & trading firms must come forward in a big way to encourage sports like  Basketball, Volleyball, Badminton, Table Tennis, Athletics etc.
• Govt. machinery must be made accountable to deliver what they promise to do as a policy and/or regulation.
• Ensure participation of star payers of that area in all sports activities.

           I intend to discuss other sports related issues in my next posts. 

                                                 Will meet again with Open Mind.All the Best.
# Published in Patna Daily.com