Chandigarh: The Punjab government on Monday approved the launch of the Punjab Cricket League (PCL), positioning sports as a strategic intervention for youth empowerment rather than a token outreach programme.
Planned on the Indian Premier League (IPL) model with district and regional teams and backed by institutional partnerships with the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA), the league is intended to systematically identify, groom and channel young talent into professional pathways, while simultaneously building a wider ecosystem of district- and state-level leagues across multiple sports to pull the state’s youth decisively away from drugs and towards discipline, opportunity and national representation.
Sharing a few snippets from the following meeting, CM Bhagwant Singh Mann wrote: “Today in Chandigarh, held a meeting with senior officials of the Department of Sports and Youth Services to discuss various issues, with a focused deliberation on promoting sports culture across the state. All officials were directed to make their maximum contribution towards encouraging youth to take up sports, with the objective of building a healthy and fit society. The government is consistently working to restore sports culture in Punjab and to reconnect the youth with playgrounds across the state.”
Chairing a review meeting of the Sports department, Mann stated that the state government would tie up with the Punjab Cricket Association and the Board of Control for Cricket in India to organise the league with the objective of grooming young talent from across Punjab.