shimla himachal pradesh has a new sports policy after 21 years it talks of broadbasing games achieving excellence on the national and international stage building a sports culture and inculcating ethics spirit of camaraderie and a desire to win in the players it proposes to constitute the himachal pradesh state sports council under the chairmanship of the chief ministerit proposes the sports minister to be vicepresident of this council and suggests additional chief secretary for sport finance secretary eminent players and sports administrators to its members the director of sport will be the member secretary the council will approve budget for the different sporting activities and formulate policies and schemes for sports promotion in the statethe new policy that the state cabinet approved on friday includes a proposal for integrating sport and physical education making it a compulsory subject up to the secondary school level and giving students marks for it it is for introducing a fitness programme in all the schools for rewards at the college and university level an appropriate competition structure for schools colleges and universities will be introduced at the district and state levelsfor promoting sport as a career option that government will make infrastructure resources and competitive opportunities available to the highperformance athletes it will give them a sense of security through awards government jobs public felicitation and civic reception it will use the champions to promote sport among the masses and motivate budding playersthe state government wants to revise its cash rewards scheme for the athlete to align it with their performance it has proposed a pension scheme for medal winners from the olympics asian games and commonwealth games there is also proposal for monthly income through annuity for the winners of the arjuna dhayan chand and khel ratna awards and this is besides the central governments incentivesso far haryana had the most competitive sports rewards programme in the north region which has motivated a lot of younsters to take up olympic sport at various levels