Prime Minister Imran Khan on Monday, while highlighting the importance of sports for a healthy life and giving the youth mental strength to fight the challenges in life, expressed his government's resolve to spread a network of sports grounds across the country.

“When you learn to compete in ground, you also learn to win and also learn to face defeat. When there comes a difficult time in the life of a person, he or she faces that challenge with courage,” Imran Khan told a huge gathering of youth here at the Jinnah Stadium on the occasion of launching of country’s historic Kamyab Jawan Sports Drive.

Sports Drive was part of the new four projects worth Rs4 billion initiated by the present government in coordination with the Kamyab Jawan Programme and the Higher Education Commission to keep the country’s youth engaged in sports and extracurricular activities.

The prime minister, who earlier launched the Sports Drive and lit-up the torch, said that since the country’s 70pc of population was under the age of 30 years, the present government had so far developed 300 and 260 sports grounds in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, respectively.

He said that with New Zealand, a country of just 5 million population, had more sports grounds than Pakistan, a country of 220 million people, the present government was striving to develop sports grounds in every village, town, tehsil and districts across the country.

The prime minister said as a new sports policy had also been announced, the government was taking all reforms measures to strengthen the sports bodies and organisations and eliminate mafias from sports.

Besides the promotion of sports activities, Imran Khan said that the government was also focusing on education and had disbursed Rs47 billion in scholarships to 6.3 million youth, the highest number of scholarships in country’s history.

Prime Minister Imran Khan mentioned his 21 years of experience in sports and said his message for the youth was that they should never feel discouraged after defeat in a game, as it provided them an opportunity to review their shortcomings and prepare themselves for the next competition with a renewed vigour and spirit.

He said that the government was striving to take Pakistan forward in international sports through various measures including talent-hunt, development of grounds, reforms in sports bodies and elimination of mafias.

The prime minister congratulated his Special Assistant on Youth Affairs Usman Dar for organising such a big event of Kamyab Jawan Sports Drive and hoped that such talent-hunt drives will help further promote sports culture in the country and among youth.

Minister for Inter-Provincial Coordination and Sports Dr Fehmida Mirza in her remarks on the occasion described the Kamyab Jawan Programme as one of the present government’s best programmes and initiatives.

Special Assistant to PM on Youth Affairs Usman Dar, while speaking on the occasion, highlighted the details and objectives of the Kamyab Jawan Sports Drive.

Besides the participation of a total of 6000 youth including 3300 boys and 2700 girls in the age group of 15 to 25 years in the sports competition, he said, a large number of youth from the across the country had gathered at Jinnah Stadium to witness the Sports Drive.

Usman Dar highlighted the importance the present government gave to youth and mentioned the allocation of Rs100 billion for the provision of soft loans to unemployed youth under the Kamyab Jawan Programme.