Sports events lose out to political programmes at Indoor Stadium

Surat: Pandit Deen Dayal Indoor Stadium, a facility created by Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) for sporting events at the cost of Rs 23 crore and renovated recently at the cost of Rs 20 crore, is being utilized for political programmes. Instead of making a policy of letting the stadium for sporting events for at least 100 days a year, such political events are hurting the facility once again.
The stadium has seating capacity of 7,000 people and had reopened after renovation ahead of the Asian Table Tennis tournament last year.
SMC had mulled that a professional sports marketing agency will be given the contract to bring in commercial sports events to the city.
"The agency will bring in top level sporting event and would also generate revenue, besides generating curiosity and interest among national and international sporting community," said local BJP councillor Anil Goplani, who head the transport committee in SMC.
It was decided among administrators and elected leaders of SMC to form a new policy under which sporting bodies of indoor games would be given the facility free for 100 days for practice and in return they would have to bring in their sporting events to the city to be hosted in the Indoor Stadium.
However, till now no such policy has been made and as a result sporting events are not being organised at the Indoor Stadium, Goplani said.
"The situation needs to be balanced. We need to earn at least yearly maintenance money by giving the facility for other cultural and commercial programmes, when there are no sporting events planned," said a top ranking office bearer from SMC.
In past, too, Navratri festivals have been held at the stadium for over 10 years. SMC had earned around Rs 1 crore from the event every year. SMC plans to let the facility for Navratri festival this year too.