India's sports ministry made a "unilateral'' decision to merge a joint fund of Rs 80 crore ($15.1M) created four years ago -- including Rs 50 crore ($9.5M) from the Board of Control for Cricket in India -- to "bail out cash-starved sports disciplines into a larger corpus," the National Sports Development Fund, according to Swamy & Basu of the TNN. The BCCI "is fuming" over the decision and said that it has been "kept in the dark not only on the merger but also on how the money is being spent." BCCI sources said that "the ministry's attitude could force them to stop contributing to the fund." A source said: "We expected the ministry to inform us about how they were spending our money. We sent them so many letters. Had they been more professional in their approach, we would have been glad to give more funds for the development of other sports." Sports secretary PK Deb said that he would write to the BCCI "about the status of the fund besides providing them with the accounts audited by the comptroller and auditor general of India" (TNN, 10/14).
