New Delhi: In its bid to promote cue-sports at the grassroot level, Billiards and Snooker Federation of India has launched the North Zone State School Snooker Championship, which commenced on Monday.
The tournament offers a total prize money of Rs 51,000 with 64 boys from 17 schools of the eight states, including Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh participating.
Winner of the week-long tournament will bag Rs 21,000.
"This is the first time BSFI has taken such a step to promote snooker at the school level. We were earlier holding the Delhi schools snooker championship, but this time the Federation has decided to hold north zone school snooker tourney," BSFI President Capt PVK Mohan said.
"From next year onwards, we will take this tournament to other zones, including East, West, South and Central. In future we will also organize inter-zonal championships from where we will pick the best pool of players and then selected lots will be graduated to the national level," Mohan said.
"People think this game is meant for elite, but we are making efforts to make it more spectator-friendly. We have brought this game out of the hotels and clubs.
“It's a good beginning for BSFI. We have organised a championship of the same level in Pune where it was hugely successful and had attracted a lot of crowd," he added.
PTI
First Published: Monday, June 28, 2010, 19:39