A cross country race was organised here on Saturday jointly by the district administration including Zilla Panchayat, Youth Services and Sports Department and Pragathi Grameena Bank.

During the prize distribution, Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav said that the race was held to create awareness about environment among the people.

In the name of urbanisation, the environment was being degraded and it was therefore necessary to create awareness among people about the importance of greening the surroundings and keeping a check on pollution, he added.

Zilla Panchayat Chief Executive Officer Sreedhar and others also spoke on the occasion.

The race began at 7 am and Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav himself participated in the race besides officials from six taluks of the district and former Gauribidanur legislator Shivashankar Reddy and Tahsildar Poornima.

However, some officials gave up the race after running for a distance and returned in their cars.

Some officers including the Deputy Commissioner were successful in completing the 14 kms race.

The following are the winners of the race: Praveen Kumar (1), Ravi Kumar (2), Prakash Kumar (3). In the junior category (boys) up to nine years S Tejas won the first place and in the girls category the winners were S Ompriya (1), Suma (2) and Nethra (3).