July 03, 2007	Tuesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 17, 1428

LAHORE, July 2: The Punjab government has decided not to give complete control of any of its stadiums to the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB), highly placed sources in the provincial government’s revenue department told Dawn on Monday.

The PCB, ever since the tenure of its former chairman – Shaharyar M. Khan – has been seeking to gain control of the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium and Iqbal Stadium, Faisalabad due to various complaints regarding the maintenance of these two venues.

About six months ago the PCB had announced the MoUs, in this regard, with the Punjab government, were about to be signed. However, so far it has not taken effect, as the two parties haven’t resolved certain issues.

“The Punjab government is ready to facilitate the PCB fully for the organisation of international matches at its stadiums, but it is not ready to completely hand over any venue to the board only for better maintenance purposes,” the sources informed.

“The (Punjab) government has sufficient funds and is making all efforts to improve the facilities at the arenas, since these are government’s valuable properties.”

The Punjab government is arguing that it has had a bitter experience of handing over the Gaddafi Stadium to the PCB, as the board, after taking control of the Stadium, had even abolished the venue’s Chief Minister Enclosure besides ending club cricket there.

Nevertheless, sources said the PCB is likely to get control of the inside area of the stadiums for preparing and maintaining pitches there besides providing other facilities according to the International Cricket Council (ICC) requirements.

The entire Nishtar Sports Complex, comprising Gaddafi Stadium, home of the PCB headquarters, is the revenue department’s property.

Meanwhile, sources also disclosed that recently the (provincial) revenue department had received Rs30 million as its 20 per cent share from the PCB from its income earned through renting shops at the Gaddafi Stadium.