Thursday, October 29, 2009

Revenue targets from Commonwealth Games are too optimistic

A recent detailed report carried out by Comptroller & Auditor General of India (CAG) has highlighted that Commonwealth Games Organizing Committee (OC) is aiming at mopping up highly optimistic revenues out of the Commonwealth Games scheduled for next October.

The report, compiled over a three-month period earlier this year, evaluated the committee's preparedness in seven key areas, and it reserved a large portion of its alarm for a chapter titled "Financial Management". The report highlights that the OC had nearly doubled its projected revenue, from an initial figure of Rs900 crore, to over Rs 1780 crore, which was beyond any realistic estimates.

The stream of revenue that appeared to most mystify CAG was sponsorship fees, which leaped from an estimate of Rs450 crore to Rs960 crore. A significant fraction of sponsorship benefits will also arrive in kind, according to the report, and so may not be sufficient to offset any operating expenses.

According to the report, steps for generating sponsorship and other revenue should be further expedited as the window of opportunity is fast shrinking with the passage of time. No sponsorship contracts had been signed at all when the report was written some three to four months back. Only one sponsorship deal,predictably with Air India, for transportation had been struck by that time.

Ticket sales, however, are only expected to generate Rs100 crore, a small fraction of the total and just one-third of another intriguing item in the OC's revenue break-up. The OC has just signed an agreement to hold a lottery in Mizoram, and is hoping that other non-lottery states will permit this in the interest of sport.
Sales of tickets for the Mizoram lottery will begin on 1 November, 85% of the proceeds will accrue to the OC, while 15% will go to the Mizoram government.

The OC treasurer insisted that the CAG report is not reliable, and that it had worked with outdated information, even though it was researched between March and May.

The OC's own timetable, however, had called for sponsorship rights sales to begin last November, and for raising Rs40 crore in sponsorship revenue by June. But neither of them transpired. However, he still expressed hopes of mopping up a major part of targeted revenues of Rs 1780 crore very close to the Commonwealth Games.
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Man commits twin murders

AIZAWL, Oct 29: A man held in connection with the murder of a Public Health Engineering Department pump operator has confessed to have committed another murder.
Police sources today said here that Joseph Thanga (23), son of Sikar Marandi, a resident of Lawngtlai district in southern Mizoram, confessed to have killed IC Mishra (55) inside latter’s quarters at Tuithum near here on August 28.
He further confessed killing B Lalhmingpuia (43), inside the latters residence at Tuithiang locality here on January 13 this year. The accused was incarcerated in the Central Jail for smaller crimes earlier, where he said to his co-inmates that he had committed a murder.
Based on the information and the fact that at the time of his second victims death he was out of jail, the police zeroed in on him.
READ MORE - Man commits twin murders