THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Greenfield Stadium, a state-of-the-art facility built to help aspiring athletes from the state and beyond realise their dreams, is staring at a bleak future due to government apathy. The first-ever international sports stadium built on the PPP funding model in Kerala cost Rs 161 crore, but it has been three years since any maintenance is carried out at the stadium, with the concessionaire citing funding issues as the reason. The government is showing no interest in taking over the facility either.
After the concessionaire, Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services (IL&FS), went bankrupt in 2018, the government stopped releasing the annuity funds to its subsidiary Karyavattom Sports Facilities Limited (KSFL) to carry out the maintenance. However, it sanctioned Rs 22 crore as last year’s share.
“The government should have taken over the stadium a long ago. The wear and tear started becoming visible in 2018. In 2021, the government released Rs 22 crore of the Rs 29-crore annuity fund to the concessionaire. Not a single penny was spent from that on maintenance, and they did not pay even a penny for the utilities. If this goes on for another year or two, the stadium would be doomed. The government should form a committee immediately and take a detailed look at the facility as the concessionaire agreement would be over in another five years and the stadium will become an asset of the state government,” said a source.
“There should be serious auditing on the commercial activities happening at the sports hub,” the source added. The Kerala Cricket Association (KCA) says it is unable to organise matches at the stadium due to a lack of maintenance, and cautions the sports hub would miss its status if it fails to host matches allotted by BCCI.
The KCA could host only three matches at the venue in the past seven years. The association is responsible only for the maintenance of the field of play and is spending Rs 8 lakh every month for the same. “We had to cancel two or three matches allotted by the BCCI this year because the stadium is ill-maintained. We had to spend around Rs 70 lakh on fixing the floodlights alone. In addition, we did emergency maintenance work and even civil works. When we approached the concessionaire, they asked us to do it and deduct the amount from their payment for holding the event. They owe us Rs 2.2 crore already,” said a KCA office-bearer.
He said 80% of the issues of the stadium are not resolved.
“Corporate boxes, which form a major share of revenue collected through ticket sales, are incomplete and only four are functional now. We are unable to conduct IPL matches because of this. Concourse areas are not developed either. The stadium is incomplete and we informed the state government about all these issues. If the situation goes on like this, the stadium will lose its fitness and there are no other international stadiums in Kerala. The KCA has plans to set up its own stadium in the state and we are working on that. All these issues won’t surface if we have a stadium of our own,” said the official.
The official said there is no proper monitoring of the commercial activities inside the stadium. “Greenfield is one of the 23 BCCI-authorised international stadiums in the country and we need to maintain it to host allotted matches or else we will lose the status,” the official said.
IL&FS Transportation Networks Ltd former vice-president Anil Pandala said the government owes the company huge sums of money. “We provided additional facilities, worth around Rs 57 crore worth, outside the scope of work at the sports hub following demands from the government for the National Games, but the government is yet to give us the amount. It’s disheartening to see the present status of the stadium. In the past seven years, the cricket association hosted only three international matches at the stadium. Regular sporting events or maintenance are not happening. The government is the main culprit. Multi-sports events should happen at the stadium, not just in cricket. Mobile cricketing turfs are available and regular maintenance is not required and the stadium can be used for other sporting events,” said Anil.
“The sports department, state government and the KCA are least bothered about the situation of the stadium.”