Ranchi: In a bout of lavish spending, the Jharkhand government spent about Rs 42 lakh in two unofficial tennis ball cricket matches earlier this year in March.
On March 18, 2021, a match was organised between Chief Ministers XI and Speaker XI in Ranchi's JSCA Stadium, for which a bill totalling at Rs 30,85,616 has been prepared.
A second match was organised on March 22 between Chief Ministers XI and Journalists XI in the Birsa Munda stadium located in Ranchi' Hotwar locality. For this, on the other hand, a bill of 11,33,636 has been made.
The figures were provided by the Directorate of Sports in response to a Right To Information (RTI) plea.
As per information, for the first match, Raj Sports in Ranchi provided tracksuits, t-shirts, caps, shoes, shocks and kit bags for an amount of Rs 24 lakhs. Kaveri Restaurant, on the other hand, charged a total of Rs 3.19 lakhs for dinner items. The rest of the money was reportedly used for peripheral purchases, such as tent house and recording equipment.
For the second match, Rs 9.37 lakhs were spent on cricket kit and dinner items were listed out by Kaveri Restaurant at a price of Rs 94,500.
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Questions have arisen, however, with regard to the missing kit bill for the second match.
In response to this query, it has been said that since the players had already received kit during the first match, expenses in the second match had come down substantially.
As per information accessed by ETV Bharat, there were questions posed towards spending Rs 42 lakhs in two unofficial matches by Congress in the state cabinet.
Upon posing the question to Inderjit Singh, powerlifter and owner of Raj Sports, it was learnt that the quotation was given by the Directorate of Sports, on the basis of which the order was placed. Singh was unable to provide any information as to why the bill has not been cleared so far.
He pointed out, however, that the order for the March 22 match was put out on a very short notice, due to which kit had to be ordered from Delhi in a hurried manner.
Significantly, he said a total of 180 kits were supplied for both matches.
The total bill prepared in lieu of purchase of 180 kits was Rs 27.20 lakhs, indicating every kit cost around Rs 15,000.
Apart from the obvious free flow in expenses, questions have also surfaced surrounding the purchase of 180 kits in the first place, especially when a total of 50 kits would have sufficed for the three teams with 11 players each: Chief Ministers XI, Speaker XI and Journalists XI.
