On Friday, India and Australia will play the fourth T20I at Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Stadium. However, with just hours before a potential series decider, Indian media says that parts of the stadium are without power due to an outstanding payment of INR3.16 crore dating back to 2009.
In response to a request from the Chhattisgarh State Cricket Association (CSCA), a temporary power connection has been installed, catering specifically to the spectators’ gallery and boxes at the stadium. Unfortunately, this leaves the entire ground without a power supply, prompting the use of a generator to illuminate the floodlights for the match scheduled tonight.
Ashok Khandelwal, the Raipur Rural Circle in-charge, confirmed that the CSCA Secretary has submitted an application to increase the capacity of the temporary connection from 200KV to 1000KV. However, the actual work on this upgrade has not commenced yet.
The issue of an unpaid electricity bill came to light in 2018 during a half-marathon event at the stadium when participants discovered a lack of electricity. Investigations revealed that the bill had not been settled since 2009, accumulating to a substantial amount of INR 3.16 crore.
Since the power cut incident in 2018, the stadium has hosted only three international matches, and the upcoming match will mark the fourth. The situation regarding the outstanding bill for the stadium lights remains unclear. Tarunesh Singh Parihar, the media coordinator of CSCA, mentioned that a temporary connection has been established in the name of CSCA.
It is essential to note that India is currently leading the five-match T20I series 2-1, with Suryakumar Yadav’s team eager to secure victory in the upcoming Friday match. Despite having an opportunity to clinch the series in the third T20I, India faced resistance from Glenn Maxwell, preventing them from securing the win.
