April 19, 2010

Imagine IPL as a government organisation

Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh had two full hours at his disposal to discuss ‘IPL Mess’ with Shashi Tharoor.

Sonia Gandhi has been seriously thinking of Tharoor, Sunanda and IPL. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister, A K Antony along with Home minister P Chidambaram is taking stock of the situation and is meeting each other every day.

L K Advani, Narendra Modi, Vasundhara Raje, Arun Jaitely are all involved in serious meeting about the IPL, Tharoor and Kochi consortium.

The biggest joke is the demand from Laloo Prasad Yadav to nationalise IPL. What a waste of energy to have even asked for it.

What is going on? For god’s sake is this what one billion Indians have voted this government for? Is IPL the biggest priority of this country?

Shame on Indian media to have created a big mountain out of a mole. A second or third grade party celebrity is the talking point of one billion Indians. Tonnes and tonnes of paper are wasted on this issue already.

The entire issues of heat, price rise, women’s bill, Finance Bill and Right to Education have gone to dogs. Instead a useless, worthless and good for nothing betting exercise called IPL – where foreign and Indian souls die to get in – is in the limelight.

The Indian PM should not have spent two minutes in this. The Indian media should have got this on their page five stories. The only department that is useful here is the Income Tax, Enforcement.

Imagine if the government concedes to the Left to nationalize IPL. The senior most IAS officer will be the Chief Commissioner of IPL. There will be a large-scale officers ranging from Additional Commissioners to Joint Commissioners sitting across the country with files that will never see the light of the day.

These files will be put up by an Upper Division Clerk and then orders neatly typed in by a Lower Division Clerk. There will be a huge Class IV employee pool whose hands will have to be greased to get their bosses.

Cricketers will have to file a form called Saral to get enrolled into IPL. The last date of filing the IPL returns will be March 31st. There will also be a trade union affiliated to CITU.

Instead of the pen down strike, the employees (read cricketers) will have a bat and ball down strike. The salaries of cricketers will read like Basic 10 lakhs, Dearness Allowance 2 lakhs, House Rent Allowance : 25 lakhs, Travelling Allowance : 4 lakhs. TDS will be deducted at the rate of 10 per cent. Deductions will include PF and CGHS. There will be a separate pay commission for IPL players to be headed by none other than Lalit Modi. Their ACRs will be written by BCCI and they will retire at the age of 58 unless government decides to increase it to 65. All cricketers who will retire from IPL will be eligible for a pension.

Te orders to increase bid prices of players will be in this format. In suppression of this Department's O.M. of even number dated 12th April , 2010, the undersigned is directed to say that it has been further clarified by Establishement (D) section of this Department that DR Assistant /DR Grade 'C' Cricketers who have got Non- Functional grade (NFG) in the grade pay of Rs. 40000000/ - would only be entitled for 3rd financial upgradation in the immediate higher grade pay of Rs. 50000000/- on completion of 10 years of continuous service(to be in the playing eleven) or on completion of 5 years stagnation(to be on the bench helping in providing drink or towels) in a single grade pay, whichever is earlier. No further financial upgradation would be admissible to such cricketers.

Crazy but this is India, the oldest and the most pragmatic civilization in this world