Water for IPL cricket in drought a criminal wastage: Bombay HC
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday dubbed criminal wastage the use of high amounts of water to keep the cricket stadia ready for the IPL T20 matches in Maharashtra. The court was hearing a petition on the misuse of water in severely drought-hit Maharashtra. Nineteen IPL matches are scheduled at the Wankhede and DY patil stadiums in Mumbai, Sahara stadium in Pune and the one in Nagpur. The court put a straight question to the State Government: `Are cricket matches more important than people? Maintaining cricket pitches while there is drought in Maharashtra is a criminal wastge. `Ideally the venue should be changed.' The petitioner is a former journalist Ketan Tirodkar. He wants the government to collect Rs 1000 for each litre of water used for cricket. In the IPL 2013 edition, about 66 lakh litres water was used for maintaining the cricket pitches at the Wankhede stadium, DY Patil stadium and in Pune.