Sad Sports Saga

THE lack of preparation for the forthcoming Ninth South Asia Federation (SAF) Games has again brought to light the wretched state that National Sports Council, the country’s apex sports body, is in. The sad saga of Nepal’s sports continues. With barely two months left for the SAF Games to begin in Islamabad from October 7, sports officials are engaged in budgetary subjects and not in how best to run closed camps for the participating athletes. Cash-strapped as the national exchequer is, its request for a 40-million-rupee budget for preparation and participation is likely to be unmet by a long margin. Most likely, it will have to be content with sending to Pakistan a much smaller contingent than a 235-member squad it is thinking of. What’s wrong with sending a small, compact squad to Islamabad? Nothing. Granted, the South Asian sports jamboree is a significant sports event in this part of the world, but spending millions of rupees in the name of regional or international exposure would be unjustified, when Nepal’s sports house is in such a disorder.

Signs of the disorder are aplenty. One of the major indications of the NSC disarray is its elephantine shape. Huge yearly budgetary allocations are eaten up by administrative expenses of this highly overstaffed behemoth, having been used often as a recruiting centre over the years. Which means that yearly investment in sports development programmes get a short shrift in the scheme of things. Why does it need a bloated staff of 1226 when much less should be sufficient? The government has rightly asked it to cut back staff positions to around 370 so that the yearly budgetary pains are eased. It must immediately take steps to do it. As to the participation in the Islamabad sports congregation, the government should release a reasonable amount of money without delay in order that preparation could begin. It is a gauge of NSC’s general mismanagement that the talk of preparation begins when a major sports meet is right at the doorstep. For the last Games held in Kathmandu, athletes had trained in closed camps for nine months. This time even the selection of the final list of athletes for intensive training is still not finalised. Things being so, together with the omission of some martial arts events for Islamabad meet, it is quite unlikely that Nepal’s haul there would match the 33 gold it collected in the Kathmandu Games when it stood second in the overall tally. But more fundamental than the participation in the coming SAF Games is the task of revamping the NSC.

Generating Awareness

WITH the onset of monsoon,a great misfortune befalls in the country every year. The monsoon fury wrecks havoc in the country in the form of flash floods and landslides. The nation and the people suffer as floods and landslides cause damage of property worth millions of rupees annually. This has become perennial problem in the country. However, never have we done anything in advance to check possible damage and generate public awareness on natural disasters like flood and landslides. Experts are of the view that if local people are made aware of the causes of the natural disaster and ways to mitigate the consequences, such damages could be reduced by almost 50 per cent. But such have not been made so far. People are not aware of the causes of this perennial problem. As a result, they suffer huge damage every year. In most of the cases, they themselves and their activities are the causes of such natural calamities. The deterioration of natural ecology because of human activities is some of the causes of such natural calamity like floods and landslides in the country. The heavy deforestation and soil erosion in the Mahabharat and Churia ranges of the country cause floods in the Terai. If people are educated about the importance of natural environment and its conservation and natural disasters can be reduced to a large extent. Similarly, another problem that people and the nation suffer especially during the monsoon season every year is the outbreak of different kinds of epidemics. Kala-azar, encephalitis, malaria and gastro-enteritis are some of the endemic epidemics that claim lives of hundreds of people every year especially during the monsoon season. These epidemics break out every year as people are not aware of their causes. These are easily preventable diseases and if we are aware of their causes and measures to prevent them, we can save hundreds of lives from these diseases. As different epidemics break out every year in monsoon season especially in the rural areas, greater efforts need to be made to prevent them. Public health status in Nepal is one of the poorest in the world. The government has accorded high priority to the improvement of Nepal’s health sector, emphasis need to be laid on the preventive methods rather than curative one. For this, people and community need to be mobolised and encouraged to generate awareness on public health.