HCA ate half the money, Ratnakar Shetty to Hyderabad HC

Hyderabad: BCCI observer Ratnakar Shetty has slammed the Hyderabad Cricket Association for gross violation of rules during the recent India-Bangladesh Test match in his report submitted to the Hyderabad High Court which had asked him to monitor the conduct of the game played at the Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium.

While pointing to glaring irregularities in awarding of contracts, Shetty in his letter implied he could not do much as “the HCA had already called for tenders and decided on the organisational aspects for the (February 9-13) game before I took charge of the supervision (on February 7).”

“The president and secretary were given clear instructions that the officials who had to demit office in accordance with the orders passed by the Supreme Court should not be involved in the match. However, former vice-president Syed Moizuddin who demitted office, was actively involved in the tendering process and award of contracts,” Shetty wrote.

“The total expenses for food alone were Rs 75 lakh. The HCA office bearers and the executive committee members are more keen to protect their own vote banks by giving free tickets with buffet lunch to the members. Almost 50 per cent of the catering bills are towards members and officials — each club gets five passes in the main pavilion with lunch,” Shetty submitted.

Shetty also dragged in president M. Narender Goud. “It was observed that the tendering process followed by HCA is far from being transparent. Most contracts had one vendor bidding and in some cases no bids were called. The interim president himself handpicked an agency for ticketing without any tender. One of the joint secretaries was involved with the award of contracts for buses and cars for the teams and match officials. There was only one tender and quotations were called for use of vehicles for 24 hours — something which is unheard of,” he wrote.

“There is one vendor M/s Sanjay Maintenance Services who has been awarded various annual maintenance contracts (10 in all) by HCA aggregating to a payment of approximately Rs 10 lakh per month and yet the same vendor has been given separate contracts for the similar scope of work for the match days,” Shetty further pointed out.