The cat is finally out of the bag and it is official now that no IPL games would be held in Maharashtra after April end according to a High Court verdict. 70 lakhs litres to water pitches at a time of drought situation in the State was indeed an criminal waste of precious fluid which one needs for survival but one wonders how shifting of IPL games at the fag end of the tournament help solve the draught situation in Maharashtra?
A compromise solution would have been for the cash rich BCCI should have been ordered by the courts to supply four times more the water used for cricket pitches to drought hit areas of the state. A cannon train is being dispatched by the government with several wagons of water to Latur from Sangli and BCCI too could have been asked to adopt a few villages hit by severe drought. Another alternative is to play games on artificial turf pitches like the one they have in indoor stadiums and today we have the technology to even come out with innovative methods to play games on turfs other than the natural grounds of mud which could save millions of gallons of water.
Also, you don’t dig a well after the place is on fire and the authorities including the government, the sports administrators and the courts should work in tandem to see that things of national interest are well planned in advance so that there are no unnecessary cases dangling in courts at the time of such events which spoils the image of the country globally!
S.N. Kabra
(The views expressed by the author in the article are his/her own.)
