By Our Sports Affairs Bureau
NEW DELHI/CUTTACK/BHUBANESWAR:The first-ever Khelo India University Games will take off in Odisha with a mega launch event at the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor Stadium, Cuttack on Saturday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will declare open the multi-disciplinary sporting event through video conference. The Khelo India University Games are being launched by the Government of India in association with the Government of the State of Odisha.
The Games will be held from 22 February to 1st March 2020 at KIIT deemed to be University campus in Bhubaneswar.
This is the largest ever competition held at university level in India and will have about 3500 athletes from over 150 universities across the country taking part in it.
There will be a total of 17 sports namely archery, athletics, boxing, fencing, judo, swimming, weightlifting, wrestling, badminton, basketball, football, hockey, table tennis, tennis, volleyball, rugby and kabaddi. The attempt is to make the Khelo India University Games an aspirational competition for India’s youngsters with twin objectives of helping them find the balance between sport and education.
Khelo India Programme, a brain child of the Prime Minister was introduced to revive the sports culture in India at the grass-root level by building a strong framework for all sports played in the country and establish India as a great sporting nation.
Government of India successfully conducted the Khelo India School Games in 2018 and the National Youth Games in 2019 and 2020.
