At Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh stadium, India and Australia will play their fourth T20 international today. In parts of the stadium, there’s no electricity just hours before the crucial match. An electricity bill that hasn’t been paid since 2009 is the reason.
The stadium has an outstanding bill of ₹ 3.16 crore, which led to its electricity connection being cut five years ago. The Chhattisgarh State Cricket Association requested a temporary connection, but it only covers the spectators’ gallery and boxes. A generator would be needed to run the floodlights during the match today.
According to Ashok Khandelwal, the Raipur Rural Circle in-charge, the Secretary Cricket Association has applied to increase the stadium’s temporary connection capacity. Currently, the temporary connection has a capacity of 200 KV. The application to upgrade it to 1 thousand KV has been approved, but work hasn’t begun.
When athletes participating in a half-marathon discovered that there was no electricity at the stadium in 2018, there was an uproar. Then it was revealed that the outstanding electricity bill, which had risen to ₹ 3.16 cr, had not been paid since 2009.
Following construction, the Public Works Department (PWD) assumed responsibility for the stadium’s upkeep, with the Sports Department covering any outstanding costs. The unpaid power bill has become the subject of accusations between the two departments.
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Although PWD and the Sports Department received multiple notifications from the electrical supplier to pay up, no payment has been made as of yet.
Since the 2018 power outage, three international cricket matches have taken place at the venue. The Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh (CSCS), who is currently in charge of the stadium, claimed they owe the energy company nothing.
