The fourth Twenty20 International match between Australia and India will take place at Raipur’s Shaheed Veer Narayan Singh Stadium on Friday, But with only hours to go before a series decider, rumours in Indian media suggest that the stadium is experiencing a power outage in some areas because of an outstanding bill of INR 3.16 million from 2009.
According to Indian media, at the request of the Chhattisgarh State Cricket Association (CSCA), a temporary connection has been established; however, it only provides electricity to the boxes and spectator gallery, leaving the rest of the stadium without power. A generator will power the floodlights for the game.
The Raipur Rural Circle in-charge, Ashok Khandelwal, verified that the CSCA Secretary has submitted an application to raise the temporary connection’s capacity from 200KV to 1000KV; however, no work has started on this upgrade.
The overdue debt became apparent in 2018 when participants using the stadium for a half-marathon discovered it was without electricity. It was then discovered that the outstanding balance of INR 3.16 crore had not been paid since 2009.
There have only been three international matches held in the stadium since the 2018 power outage, and this one will be the fourth.
India lodges case against Australian player Mitchell Marsh for ‘hurting cricket fans’
