As per accounts submitted in Bombay on Friday, the opening ceremony of the World Cup, held at Calcutta's Eden Garden on February 11, alone cost Rs 66,914,224. The main sponsors Indian Tobacco Company paid Rs 16,500,000 crore, the television rights for the ceremony brought an income of Rs 26.200,000 crore, while the advertisement revenue was Rs 8,500,000 (total income Rs 51,250,000).
Board of Control for Cricket in India members have, following the tabling of the accounts, strongly protested organising secretary Jagmohan Dalmiya's ``outrageous extravaganze.'' Dalmiya, it will be remembered, was directly in charge of the opening ceremony.
Dalmiya revealed these figures to the BCCI members prior to the annual general body meeting scheduled next week, and Vidharbha Cricket Association president P R Mundle, who has announced his candidature for the presidentship of BCCI against Raj Singh Dungarpur of Bombay, is leading the protest.
Mundle, in a letter to Dalmiya has said that so many items, on which extraordinarily large amounts have been spent, require more details.
Mundle says that he is baffled by the very first item on the expense sheet, a payment of dollars 2,880,000 to an agency called Half Moon. Nowhere in the accounts does it specify, however, what the agency's business is, or what services it rendered to deserve the princely payment. And to make matters worse, Mundle points out, there is a further entry of commission, to the tune of Rs 500,000, paid to the Calcutta office of the selfsame Half Moon agency.
Mundle's grouse does not end there - he questions the payment of Rs 500,000 to filmstar Saeed Jaffrey, the compere for the evening, who not only spoke in a suspiciously slurred tone of voice but consistently got names and facts wrong throughout his spiel.
Why, Mundle further asks, was Lata Mangeshkar - a self-confessed fan of cricket - paid Rs 500,000 for a song that was over and done with in three minutes, and since completely forgotten? Why was the impression created that former Miss Universe Sushmita Sen's appearance at the inaugural was gratis, when she had actually accepted compensation to the tune of Rs 100,000? What does the item - Flags, expenditure thereon, Rs 300,000 actually mean? Weren't participating countries bringing their own flags? If yes, then what does this item relate to? And if no, then why not, given that it is the norm for countries to come with their own flags?
The expenditure sheet has more eye-openers: for instance, Dalmiya's statement of expenses has an entry of Rs 1,500,000 for electricity consumption on the day of the inaugural ceremony this despite the fact that Dalmiya has now asked the Cricket Association of Bengal to pay a further Rs 3,000,000 on the same item.
The CAB has, incidentally, gone to court on this issue.
Again, Dalmiya had apparently hired British-based cricket photographer Patrick Eagar to cover the opening ceremony for the organisers, paying the lensman 2,000 pounds for that task alone. This, despite the fact that Eagar, who these days operates freelance, was in any event covering the Wills World Cup on his own account. And worse, Eagar's photographs, copies of which were supposedly meant for press coverage, were not made available by the organisers when the media asked for them Indian papers and magazines had to arrange for their own photographs, and those who did take Eagar's photographs to enhance their coverage had to pay for the privilege.
Another interesting instance relates to the husband and wife team of Ananda Shankar and Tanushree Shankar, who choreographed and performed a dance number for the inaugural ceremony. Though the Shankars are always hired as a team, Dalmiya's accounts show a payment of Rs 300,000 to Ananda Shankar, and a seperate payment of Rs 950,000 to Tanushree Shankar.
Though each individual item in the expense sheet causes eyebrows to reach for the stratosphere, the most curious aspect of the entire business is this: before, during and after the inaugural ceremony, the impression consistently conveyed by Dalmiya was this - that all expenses of the inaugural were to be born by the Cricket Association of Bengal, and the World Cup committee had no financial responsibility in this regard.
Indeed, this was the condition under which the CAB was allotted the high profile ceremony in the first place.
Obviously, Dalmiya has some hard explaining to do in the days to come. And the heat will really be on when the BCCI meets in general body in Chandigarh next week - a meeting that, judging by the emerging evidence, is likely to be as acrimonious as they come.
Meanwhile, members of the board have already begun privately discussing the possibility of taking legal action against the high profile Dalmiya.
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