OCA expansion plan of Rs 50 cr

Cuttack, Jan 22 (uni) Orissa Cricket Association has a Re 50 crore expansion plan to convert Barabati Stadium into a state-of-the-art facility.

Talking to UNI OCA Secretary Ashirbad Behera said, ''We have laid out a plan of Rs 50 crore to improve and overhaul the infrastructure of OCA. The implementation will take sometime.'' ''But the encouraging part is that BCCI has promised to bear Rs 25 crore of the expences,'' he added.

He also said that the BCCI had increased the grants from Rs one to Rs five crore and the things were looking up in OCA.

Terming the current BCCI dispensation 'generous and progressive', he said, ''They are helping us in our endeavours.'' Asked to compare the present regime with the past, he said, ''Both are good in their own ways.'' ''For the first time we are placing two huge digital scoreboards so that people do not face any difficulty seeing the scores. Music will be played in between overs and replays could also be seen,'' said Ashirbad Behera, the Orissa Cricket Association (OCA) secretary.

The digital screens will also allow cricket lovers to watch replays of important shots, run outs and other special events of the match,' Behera said adding that the galleries a also being painted.

Barabati Stadium has about 30,190 seats and nearly half of these will be reserved for the public. OCA-affiliated units will get 7,950 tickets, he said.

UNI