Guwahati, June 22: Shamed by detection of athletes being over-aged in various national meets on earlier occasions, the Assam Athletic Association (AAA) has introduced registration cards for the junior athletes with their dates of birth mentioned in it.

The AAA today distributed the first lot of registration cards among the participants of the recent junior inter-district meet held in Nagaon.

“The step has been taken to create a data base of our athletes and check this trend among some athletes which embarrasses the state,” said AAA secretary Pradeep Nunisa after an executive committee meeting of the association here today.

He said the players once registered with a particular date of birth would not be able to change it in the future.

In another initiative towards nurturing quality athletes, the AAA, headed by Assam Olympic Association general secretary Rockybul Hussain as the president, has started implementing the AOA’s slogan of “gaon chalo”. The association will introduce a scheme of zonal grouping of districts and entrusting the districts concerned in holding meets and coaching camps among themselves.

“We have divided the 43 affiliated district units into 10 groups which will hold camps and athletics meets among themselves. We have deputed some of our senior members as authorities to oversee the implementation of the scheme who will submit the reports to us from time to time. We have reviewed some of the reports today and the implementation was found to be unsatisfactory in most cases,” Nunisa said.

About other transactions at the meeting, Nunisa said the 2nd North East Junior Athletics Championship will be held at the Indira Gandhi Athletic Stadium here on July 14 and 15.

Seven states of the region, barring Arunachal Pradesh, which is not affiliated with the Athletic Federation of India, would participate in the meet.

Events would be held in under-14, under-16, under-18 and under-20 categories.

Prior to the event, an under-14 state-level trial camp would be held here soon, he added.

The 34th junior athletics championship of the state would also be held here tentatively by August while the senior inter-district meet would be held in Dibrugarh by early next year, the secretary said.