Sports2 min
Kheri Khummar villagers raise Rs 50 lakh for a sports ground to steer youth from drugs
Families in this Jhajjar village are funding and building a running track and kabaddi court on panchayat land, hoping to keep young people active and ready for army and police recruitment.
Residents of Kheri Khummar, a village in Haryana's Jhajjar district, have started building a sports ground of their own. So far they have collected Rs 50 lakh from households, and local men and boys are doing the digging, levelling and clearing themselves. The site is panchayat land, and the plan is a running track, a kabaddi court and basic sports equipment.
The push followed a worrying discovery in the village, where drug-injection equipment was found at one spot. That prompted young people and older residents to ask a simple question: what can keep the village's youth busy and away from substances? Their answer was a place to play, train and stay fit, rather than just a patch of open ground.
Work is already underway. Youngsters have been giving two to three hours a day for about a month, bringing in soil, levelling the surface and getting the area ready for use. Households contribute according to what they can afford, which keeps the project open to families of different means.
The village has a strong link to uniformed service. According to sarpanch Raj Kumar, the village has about 7,000 residents across more than 1,200 households, and almost every family has at least one member in the Army or police. For aspiring recruits, that means a proper track close to home instead of long trips to train elsewhere, a change that could matter for candidates preparing for physical efficiency tests.
The planners also see benefits beyond recruitment. Women, children and elderly residents are expected to use the ground for morning and evening walks, and younger children may be drawn into sport early. Organisers say the goal is a lasting sporting culture in the village, not just a finished facility.
For a village to fund its own sports infrastructure at this scale is unusual, and it shows what community ownership can achieve when residents see a clear problem and a practical fix. The Kheri Khummar effort is worth watching as a model for other villages facing similar pressures. Read the original report in The Tribune.
