Sandeep Sarkar, Kolkata: In the current political context in the state, incidents like coal theft, sand theft have repeatedly come up in the headlines. The political battle is going on in full swing. But the soil is stolen, and the ‘stolen soil’ caused a disruption in the cricket field! This thing was not heard before in Bengal Maidan.
CAB, the governing body of Bengal cricket, is in trouble due to the ‘stolen ground’ stuck in the government’s strictures. The question has arisen as to how the pitch will be prepared in all the fields of the Maidan, whether it can be prepared in time at all. If the CAB administration led by Sourav Gangopadhyay had not gone into damage control, it might not have realized that there could be such a risk with the soil.
What exactly happened?
CAB provides soil to the clubs for making pitches for all fields in Maidan before the rainy season. Earlier, financial grants were given to clubs from CAB only for the construction of grounds. But CAB has also been supplying pitch soil for the past several years. So that the pitch is equal in all fields of the field. So that there is no discrimination in the character of the pitch. The quality of play will be better if the pitch is sporting. In one word, cricket experts accept what is the primary condition for the development of cricket as a whole. It is for that purpose that CAB introduced this rule of providing soil.
So where is the problem? This is the middle of the rainy season. However, CAB has not yet received the soil for making the pitch. CAB brought soil for making pitches for all the fields in Maidan from Basirhat area, Deganga regime of North 24 Parganas. And the soil of Eden Gardens comes from Tarakeswar. By speaking to the person in North 24 Parganas who supplies soil in exchange for money, CAB learned that he could not send the soil to Kolkata by car because he was stopped by the police. He also told the CAB officials that permission should be obtained by talking to the District Magistrate of North 24 Parganas. But CAB has already given advance money to that person.
After that, it is a condition of going out to dig earthworms. It was learned that CAB Secretary Bablu Kole tasked Grounds Committee Chairman Amitabh Adhaya and Umpires Committee Chief Prasenjit Bandyopadhyay to go to the office of the District Collector of North 24 Parganas to speak.
According to reliable sources, Amitabh and Prosenjit went to the office of the District Magistrate of North 24 Parganas as CAB representatives. They reported the problem to the Additional District Collector (Land Reforms – ADM LR) there. He wants to know, from whom CAB takes soil? At that time the person who supplies pitching soil to CAB is called. In response to the question of Additional District Collector (Land Reform), he said that he does not have a license to cut and supply soil. In the face of questioning, he also said that in other years, he used to supply soil by ‘bribing’ the police. Never had a problem. The Additional District Collector (Land Reforms) was shocked to hear this. CAB representatives were also uncomfortable.
It was learned that after that an officer of the Land Revenue Department was asked to look into the matter by the Additional District Collector (Land Reforms). But there are also pitfalls. The land revenue officer asks the soil supplier to give the dag number and khatian number of the land from which the soil will be cut and given to CAB. That person also submits it. But it can be seen that the land is not the property of the supplier, but of another owner. The tangle is created again.
It was heard that for the sake of cricket, the Additional District Commissioner (Land Reform) of North 24 Parganas has assured that arrangements will be made to send some soil with a special permit like this time. He also raised several uncomfortable questions. He told the CAB representatives by listing the names and phone numbers of 12 licensed dealers, why CAB does not take soil from government registered people? Why detour, illegal land is taken? Why doesn’t CAB adopt the clean method of collecting soil samples from the dealers and taking the preferred soil as per the demand? Naturally, the CAB representatives did not have an answer to that question.
After that the commotion started inside the CAB. It is being said, why there is no license to cut the soil, CAB takes the soil illegally taken from someone like this every year? Why is the price of land paid in cash without a receipt from CAB? It also came to light that CAB spends about 12-14 thousand rupees per lorry. In all, around 40 fields under CAB require about a hundred vehicles of soil every year. It is said from a part of the CAB that while the Chairman of the Grounds Committee, the now removed Joint Secretary of the CAB Madan Ghosh and Curator Sujan Mukhopadhyay used to supervise the whole matter. The question of some, they did not know about buying illegal soil? Or did some other interest work?
Some of the CAB’s current ruling group also said that such irregularities have been going on ever since former Joint Secretary Debbrata Das, who was ousted for corruption, was the chairman of the grounds committee. Allegedly, he also used to do irregularities in buying land. On the condition that the name cannot be disclosed, one said, ‘Earlier, during the tenure of Devabrata Das, there were various complaints about the purchase of land. Later when Madan Ghosh was the head of the Grounds Committee, similar complaints were made.’
ABP Live Bangla also contacted Debbrata Das in this regard. Hearing the complaint, the former joint secretary said, ‘Nonsense. And why has no one said anything about it? Are you trying to hide the topic of 6 years ago now? During my period, each lorry used to cost 4-5 thousand taka. Now it costs three times as much. Before pointing fingers at others, let the current rulers of CAB look at themselves.
Although this outage has never happened before. It was heard that CAB President Sourav Gangopadhyay was also informed about the entire incident. According to some of the ruling group, it was beyond their imagination that there could be corruption with the land. Embarrassed by the whole incident, the CAB has initiated plans to invite tenders from legitimate dealers to bring transparency in the procurement of pitch soil from next season.
