Teams from eight city institutes will participate in the third edition of the Social Premier League (SPL), a T20 cricket tournament meant to raise awareness about social issues, at the Moinul Haque stadium from March 30 to April 3.

Young Indians, the youth vertical of the Confederation of Indian Industry, will organise the tournament. The eight city colleges are NIFT, IIT, Amity Global Business School, Chandragupt Institute of Management-Patna, Cybotech, Patna Medical College and Hospital, AIIIMS, and BIT.

Young Indians national member Toni Sharma said girls' teams have been included in the tournament from this year. "We are providing an equal opportunity to girls to show their prowess," he said. "On the inaugural day, the participating teams will take part in a run to spread social messages."

Each team has to choose a social message.

"The process of spreading messages should go a long way to address social issues," said BIT captain Ankita Lall, whose team will focus on curbing malnutrition. Students were busy making posters and practising a skit. BIT had won the second edition of the SPL.

"We will spread awareness of women empowerment," said Pushkar, a student pursuing MBA at Amity Global Business School. "Our skit is based on human trafficking and focuses on girl child. We practise for two hours from Monday to Friday. On weekends, we practise for four hours."

Udyan Singh, head of the Patna chapter of Young Indians, said: "We will include more colleges from next year and participants will have to pay registration fees. We will also arrange cash prizes for the winners."

Toni said: "We are looking forward to start a kabaddi league from July this year for girls and boys. It would only be for the eight teams that are taking part in the SPL."