HCA suffered huge loss for hosting the one-off India-Bangladesh Test

The Lodha committee had asked for transparency over the distribution of complimentary tickets to the state associations hosting matches. But if we take a look at the one-off Test against Bangladesh, there were over 11,500 tickets out of the 39,000 seats given as complimentary to members, officials and some tickets were even given to personals that had nothing to do with the Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA).

According to the Indian Express, an official who has been debarred by the Supreme Court previously was involved in the preparation of the match. The contracts of the various requirements such as food, vehicles, private security were also handed over by the members of the HCA instead of contracting on the basis of bids.

BCCI’s general manager of operations, Ratnakar Shetty, who was the match observer, reported to the High Court of Judicature of Hyderabad that HCA has incurred a loss of 44 lakhs while hosting the one-off Test between India and Bangladesh. The most shocking disclosure was the food bill of the officials that is a whopping 75 lakhs.

The food is available only for the member’s box and the director’s box but according to the Indian Express, the local police inspector had certified the food bills of 2000 policeman on each day of the Test match. Shetty was appointed by the BCCI to look after the game hosted at the Uppal stadium.

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The member’s lunch bill racks up the fifty percent of the total bill. Generally, only five passes are allotted which includes lunch. Some of the contracts had only one bidder bidding, and in some cases, there were no bids at all. There was a huge mess in the quotation for use of vehicles. Transparency was nowhere to be seen.

The ticketing contract had no bids too, it is said that the stand-in President of Hyderabad Cricket Association handed over the contract to the agency of his choice. The maintenance contract for the match days of the Uppal stadium was handed over the vendor who carries out the annual maintenance of the ground.

Though HCA made little profit with the sale of tickets but a loss worth 44 lakhs sounds unreasonable.