DDCA refutes Azad, says Kotla renovation payments accounted for

Cricket body says it has nothing to do with three firms Kirti Azad alleged were ‘non-existent’.

The Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) has said every payment made to various parties during the renovation of the Feroz Shah Kotla stadium has been accounted for and rejected claims by cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad that money has been siphoned off by showing that payments had been made, which were to fake companies.

DDCA working president Chetan Chauhan said the Serious Fraud Investigation Office had given the state association the clean chit after examining all its financial records.(Virendra Singh Gosain/HT Photo)

The Rs 57 crore question

The DDCA rejected claims by cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad that only Rs 57 crore out of Rs 114 crore spent for Feroz Shah Kotla’s renovation had been accounted for. DDCA officials have furnished original bills with details of individual expenditure against different companies with the PAN numbers of the respective vendors to show that every payment was legitimate. Azad had claimed the money was siphoned off.

The DDCA officials showed Rs 57 crore was spent on civil work and an equal sum was spent on diverse heads. It also produced TDS (tax deduction at source) documents of the companies the money was paid to (a copy is with HT) along with original bills.

43 companies, not 14

Azad, in his news conference, had raised questions about the legitimacy of 14 companies. The DDCA said there was nothing irregular and that there were actually 43 companies that were engaged for the various work related to the renovation.

Azad had shown a video of a sting operation, which claimed that none of these 14 companies had “occupied verified addresses”. DDCA said its job was to ensure the work was done to satisfaction and “not to verify any company’s address”.

The DDCA also said AL Shine, one of the companies mentioned by Azad, was paid Rs 33.6 lakh and not Rs 3 crore as Azad had claimed.

“We have paid these companies for the services we have availed. If Rs 57 crore was paid to EPIL for the civic structure, the additional Rs 57 crore was spent on the furnishing of the stadium. We have the bills to prove that no money was embezzled in this transaction. The EPIL had hired sub-contractors namely VK Aggarwal & Co, Spacon Engineers & Contractors Pvt Ltd., and these sub-contractors further hired Kaushnik Fab and Buildcast to get the work done. Even the SFIO (Serious Fraud Investigation Office) has given us a clean chit after examining the records,” DDCA working president, Chetan Chauhan, said.

Real ‘fake’ bills

The association officials also said the DDCA had nothing to do with three companies mentioned by Azad and it had not paid any money to them. The DDCA asked Azad to produce bills of three companies — SK Construction, RK Jewellers and Shri Ram Tradecom — which he had claimed were ‘non-existing firms’.

“We urge Kirti Azad to give us the bills because we haven’t paid any money to these companies and they are fake bills. We want to know who are these companies…when we have each and every bill, how come we haven’t come across such firms,” asked DDCA treasurer, Ravinder Manchanda.

Purchase of computer

Azad had also questioned DDCA’s expenditure on hiring computers and printers during matches at the Kotla, and claimed the DDCA was paying around Rs 16,000 per computer and Rs 4,000 per printer. Manchanda, in a DDCA statement, said: “The bill that he showed on TV was for electronic goods hired for the entire event and not for just one computer and printer. We hired computers and printers for the commentators’ box, and third umpire and match referee’s room and the amount paid for five days was approximately Rs 65,000.”