JOIN USSports bodies under RTI is salutary
Against this simple logic, the tsunami-like wave of opposition by certain members of the Union Cabinet to the introduction of the draft National Sports Development bill presented by Sports Minister Ajay Maken is nothing short of astonishing. Predictably, the ones who bucked and screamed the loudest were closely connected with cricket in some way, shape or form.
The opposition is on the specious grounds that the bill is deeply flawed, too intrusive and would result in vesting sweeping powers in the Sports Ministry, who would use it as an ‘instrument of control’.
Ajay Maken was, perhaps, a trifle naïve to expect his bill to pass the dragons waiting to consume anyone suggesting that the affairs of the BCCI need scrutiny to the extent – horror of horrors – that it should come under the RTI Act. But the Sports minister is nothing if not feisty. “I am not a control freak,” he thundered. He said that his ministry was willing to reach out to every Cabinet Minister to understand what it was in the draft bill that they felt was an instrument of control or intrusive in nature and offered to remove the offending provisions.
However, he said there would be no compromise on three features of the bill – bringing sports bodies, including the BCCI, under the RTI Act, a cap on the age and tenure of sports officials and 25 per cent representation of sportspersons in the executive bodies of federations.
Grants all the way
I would like to zero in on the RTI aspect. MP Rajiv Shukla, also a functionary of the BCCI, plaintively asks that when the BCCI does not take any grant from the Government, how can it be brought under the RTI. I think Shukla’s conception of what constitutes a grant from Government needs re-evaluation. Who gives the BCCI income tax exemptions? Who gives the BCCI customs duty exemptions? Who gives the BCCI entertainment tax exemptions? Who gave prime land to the BCCI either free or at greatly reduced rates? Who gave Indian cricketers certain concessions in respect of their incomes from ODIs? If these handsome privileges are not grants, albeit indirect ones, then I fail to understand what grants mean.
If the BCCI has nothing to hide, why should it worry? The bill does not seek to change the way the Board works or question the vast array of privileges extended to its members. It will not stop key functionaries of the Board from preening before the TV cameras and using the exposure to further their personal and/or political agenda.
However, the RTI will certainly have the irksome effect of curbing unfettered use of power and pelf. It will certainly give any member of the public the right to prise out information on contentious matters including, but not limited to, allotment of tickets, selection, injury management of the players and glaring instances of conflict of interest affecting key members of the Board.
In these areas of concern, the Board does exactly what it pleases without any accountability to the billion or so cricket-crazy Indians whose passion has fuelled the vast riches that the Board arrogantly lords over.
I believe that this unsatisfactory situation must change. I believe that subjecting the Board to the RTI Act is a salutary move and deserves the support of every true lover of the game. But the cynic in me suggests that those very same dragons will find a way to wriggle out of what could be an uncomfortable future.
(The writer is a former World Billiards champion.)
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