PANAJI
Goa Governor P S Sreedharan Pillai on Friday evening unveiled the torch (mashaal) of the National Games even as earlier in the day, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant said funds had been routed to the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) and sports associations should not be confrontationist and resort to a boycott as threatened.
At the launch, Sawant sought wholehearted participation from all Goans and sports associations to make the event memorable.
Goa is slated to host the National Games from October 25 to November 9, which will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Earlier on Friday morning, Sawant had said that the funds to foot 80 per cent of the cost of preparations by each sports association had already been deposited with the SAG and it will be disbursed.
The sports associations have been funded as promised. They had submitted 1,500 names of athletes for their camps, when only 60 had participated in the previous edition of National Games. So it took us some time to verify," Sawant said.
"Their (sports associations) claims were high. I agree we were a little late in providing funds and equipment," he said, adding that it was wrong on their part to threaten the boycott of the torch unveiling ceremony.
The chief minister said, Rs 19 crore had been disbursed on Thursday itself for the purchase of equipment.
Meanwhile, with disbursal of funds to sports associations for conduct of the preparatory camps for the Games begun by the SAG on Friday, the Goa Olympic Association (GOA) issued a statement thanking the government.
GOA had on Thursday said, that sports associations had decided to boycott Friday's event at the Raj Bhavan citing failure of the government to disburse the promised funds to them for the conduct of the preparatory camps.
