KOCHI: The cash-strapped Cricket Association for the Blind in India (CABI) is forced to depend on hired vehicles to transport players, while mainstream cricket players are transported in air-conditioned vehicles worldwide. http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/kochi/Cash-Crunch-Puts-Blind-Cricket-on-Sticky-Wicket/2016/01/18/article3231791.ece Paucity of funds has forced organisers of the maiden T-20 Asia Cup Tournament for the blind, which is scheduled to begin at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium here on Monday, to hire online cabs like Uber and Ola to transport players. “Currently, we have arranged two vehicles to carry the 150-odd players and one Innova car for the officials. In such situations, we do not have any other option but to go for the online cab service. Earlier, we used to have sufficient number of vehicles to pick up players from hotels and to drop them at the stadium. However, dearth of funds has forced us to reduce the number of vehicles to three,” said T-20 Asia World Cup organising secretary Rajanish Henry, who is also general secretary of the Cricket Association for the Blind in Kerala. As per the original plan, the CABI is required to raise Rs 94 lakh for conduct of the Asia Cup. However, it could raise only Rs 15 lakh so far.
“The total amount includes expenses related to launch of the event and advertisement in the media. Even after removing all the additional expenses, we still have to raise Rs 70 lakh to conduct the tournament. The cost of providing five-star accommodation to the players and officials alone will be around Rs 30 lakh,” said Rajanish. Though Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had assured financial aid of Rs 25 lakh at the time of inaugurating the event, there is still uncertainty over the remaining fund. It is learnt that the government has constraints to provide the entire amount as sports items of physically challenged person are yet to be recognised by the Sports Ministry. “The Chief Minister has assured that the government would find sponsors to raise fund for the event, which is our only hope. Steps should be taken to consider games of physically challenged persons also as normal sports events. While countries like Sri Lanka and Pakistan give due respect to sports of the disabled, such players are facing neglect in our country,” Rajanish said -- Avinash Shahi Doctoral student at Centre for Law and Governance JNU Register at the dedicated AccessIndia list for discussing accessibility of mobile phones / Tabs on: http://mail.accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/mobile.accessindia_accessindia.org.in Search for old postings at: http://www.mail-archive.com/accessindia@accessindia.org.in/ To unsubscribe send a message to accessindia-requ...@accessindia.org.in with the subject unsubscribe. To change your subscription to digest mode or make any other changes, please visit the list home page at http://accessindia.org.in/mailman/listinfo/accessindia_accessindia.org.in Disclaimer: 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; 2. AI cannot be held liable for any commission/omission based on the mails sent through this mailing list..
