The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) on Saturday rubbished reports that it had splurged more than Rs 4 crore during this year’s London Olympics, and stated that the expenses incurred by it on its contingent and officials for the Games were under Rs 65 lakhs.
“It was the minimum amount IOA had spent on sending contingents for Olympic Games, in recent times,” the IOA Secretariat said in a statement here.
IOA’s rebuttal came after a newspaper report claimed that the Olympic body had spent a whopping Rs 4 crore on its officials during the London Games.
According to the report, the IOA remitted Rs 86.67 lakh towards entry tickets for sports ministry and Sports Authority of India officials as well as the public. Rs 61.62 lakh was spent on accommodation of IOA delegates and ministry officials and Rs 12 lakh on gift items. The IOA also spent Rs 1.28 lakh on dearness allowance for its Acting President and Rs 37 lakh on the ceremonial kit.
The amount also includes Rs 4 lakh on boarding and lodging of four officials who did not get accommodation in the Games Village and Rs 15 lakh on 10 tickets for the opening ceremony and an event related to the athletes’ family and friends.
As per the report, all these were revealed in IOA’s reply to an RTI petition filed by Harish Kumar, who is the president of the Taekwondo Federation of India (TFI).
The IOA, however, denied all these figures and said they were far from true. “IOA acted as a post office for receiving and distributing tickets for the Games. All the tickets received by it from the Organisers of the Games were given to those who paid for them,” the IOA secretariat said.