The Supreme Court-constituted Committee of Administrators (CoA), running the Board of Control for Cricket In India (BCCI), on Saturday donated the entire amount (INR 20 Crore) budgeted for the opening ceremony of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019 season to the armed forces.
"Every year the IPL takes off with a star-studded opening ceremony with a lot of glitz and glamour making it a grand affair. This year though is different. After the recent Pulwama terror attack, keeping in mind the sentiments of the people, the Committee of Administrators administering the BCCI decided to cancel the opening ceremony and allocate the money budgeted for it, to the Armed forces," IPL said in a statement released ahead of the first match of the season between defending champions Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in Chennai.
"The estimated cost of hosting an IPL opening ceremony is Rs 20 crore. It was unanimously decided that a sum of Rs 11 crore be contributed to the Indian Army, Rs 7 crore to the CRPF and Rs 1 crore each to the Navy and Air Force respectively," the statement added.
Last month, the CoA had already announced that the there will be no opening ceremony as a mark of respect to the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel killed in the deadly terror attack in Pulwama, Kashmir.
Then, CoA Chairman Vinod Rai had said that "We will not have any inaugural function for the IPL and the money budgeted for that goes to the martyr's families."
