Ad-hoc spending on BNS
Anisur Rahman and Quazi Zulquarnain Islam
The recent government approval of an additional Tk 4 crore to facilitate renovation work at the Bangabandhu National Stadium means that the total cost of reconstruction has moved up to a staggering Tk 35 crore to just host the opening ceremony of the 2011 World Cup.
Cricket's showpiece event will be held for the first time in Bangladesh, jointly with Sri Lanka and India, and it seems that no expense is being spared to spruce up the country's most recognised venue for the visit of luminaries on February 17, 2011.
The Big Bowl has always held a special place in the heart of cricket lovers across and beyond the country, but this coveted status has often meant that a lot of money has been spent on the stadium without significant planning or any thought of returns.
The stadium, built during the Pakistani regime in the 1950s, has in the last twelve years alone consumed upwards of Tk 70 crore for renovation, modernisation or strengthening work. The same amount could have easily built 35 grounds or ten stadiums across the country.
True, the venue is a national obsession and has played host to anything and everything whenever a big occasion came up. But it has never turned into a centre for sporting excellence or a venue people can refer to as "state of the art" because it has always proved the go-to place in case of any event. To assist this, reconstruction and renovations to the stadium were made on an as-and-when-required basis with no specific long-term planning.
The latest change has seen the BNS get an almost complete overhaul with the venue being converted into an all-seater for the first time. Along with that, a revamped VIP stand is being built as well as a two-storied refreshment stand, three new entrances, a special parking area and an additional giant screen along with the existing one, which was put up during the South Asian Games earlier this year.
While most of the changes are generally positive, the question remains of the feasibility of shelling out so much money on renovating the venue for an event that will last just a few hours.
BNS is a multi-purpose national stadium although it has mostly been used for football. Hence, the biggest question mark is about the move to an all-seater stadium as per International Cricket Council (ICC) directive, which will see the BNS be reduced to a 28,000 capacity stadium from its previous 40,000.
All-seaters are a rarity in this part of the world, but the move begets even more question marks when one takes into account Sports Minister Ahad Ali Sarker's recently stated wish of converting the BNS into a 50,000 capacity stadium in the near future.
What, then, will be done with the newly installed chairs?
There are also questions about the new giant screen, which has been reportedly installed at a cost of Tk 5 crore, despite a similar screen that was installed for a cost of Tk 2 crore last January. The older screen has been used sparingly since and the fear is that the same fate will befall the new one in a venue where events of international magnitude are few and far between.
But such lavish and short-sighted spending on the BNS is not a new phenomenon. During the ICC Mini World Cup in 1998, over six crore were spent on renovating the BNS. In the 2003-04 and 2004-05 fiscal years, upto Tk 24 crore was spent on strengthening projects. And an additional six crore were used to renovate the venue ahead of the SA Games. This is in addition to the budgeted yearly expenditure for the venue's maintenance.
There are also whispers in the National Sports Council (NSC) that the renovation works in 2003-04, 2004-05 periods were not done properly as the pillars that hold up the stadium were only recast instead of reconstructed.
The biggest fear, however is that the initiatives taken by sports ministers of both the BNP and AL-led governments showed that they are only interested to constantly renovate this multi-purpose venue rather than create additional venues in and around the city.
The AL-led government in their last term built both the Fatullah Stadium and the Birshreshtha Shaheed Mostafa Kamal Stadium in Kamalapur at a cost of Tk 22 and Tk 11 crore respectively. Such investments have become an absolute necessity since archery, basketball, chess, cycling, weightlifting, karate, wushu, taekwondo, judo, rugby and gymnastic still do not possess a standard venue as the BNS is shared by only football and athletics.
Many prominent sports organisers believe that this fixation with the BNS has seen many other sports suffer from a lack of opportunity, suggesting that the government should go for a diversification of investments into other establishments to remedy this situation.
There are also concerns that grassroots development is being exempted in favour of the BNS and engineer Abdur Rahman, NSC director of development and planning, suggested that wholesale grassroots infrastructure could be built for a fraction of the money being poured into the BNS.
"At the upazila level, it will take approximately Tk 10 crore to build a new stadium and about Tk 2 crore for a new playground, although the figure will vary when you build a stadium near the capital," he told The Daily Star.
The BNS is the mecca of the country's sport and retains an almost mythical status in the sporting arena. But reality is that it is increasingly seen as a sandpit for short-sighted infrastructural investment that has little or no long-term value.
The greatest fear is that such an obsession with the venue will cause numerous sports in their infancy to suffer badly. And for the stadium that has proved the launching pad for sport in Bangladesh, it would be the biggest irony of them all.
http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesig...php?nid=164361