No Electricity At Stadium Hosting India Vs Australia T20 Today. Bill Not Paid

India: The fourth T20 international between India and Australia will be played today at Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh stadium. But with just hours to go for the crucial encounter, there is no electricity in parts of the stadium. Reason: An electricity bill which hasn’t been paid since 2009.

The stadium has an outstanding bill of ₹ 3.16 crore, due to which the electricity connection at the stadium had been cut 5 years ago. A temporary connection was installed at the request of the Chhattisgarh State Cricket Association, but that only covers the spectators’ gallery and boxes. The floodlights during the match today would need to be run using a generator.

Raipur Rural Circle in-charge Ashok Khandelwal said that the Secretary Cricket Association has applied to increase the capacity of the temporary connection of the stadium.

At present, the capacity of the temporary connection is 200 KV. An application to upgrade it to 1 thousand KV has been approved, but work on it hasn’t started yet.

The electricity company sent several notices to PWD and Sports Department for clearance of dues, but no payment has been made yet.

Three international cricket matches have been organised in the stadium since the power connection was cut in 2018.

The Chhattisgarh State Cricket Sangh (CSCS) which currently manages the stadium, said that there is no payment that they owe to the electricity department.