Eden Gardens proves costly for Shah Rukh

First, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has demanded Rs 25 lakh from Red Chillies Entertainment as amusement tax for holding IPL matches at Eden Gardens.

According to sources, Red Chillies Entertainment has so far paid Rs 10 lakh and has assured KMC it will pay the rest Rs 15 lakh soon.

Second, to settle the dispute between Kolkata Police and DLF Indian Premier League over cost of security arrangements at Eden Gardens, Red Chillies Entertainment has agreed to pay Rs 75 lakh as security fees.

Eden Gardens will host seven matches of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), owned by Shah Rukh Khan.

About 5,500 uniformed personnel and about 1,500 sleuths would be deployed to secure the stadium and its surrounding areas since many celebrities are expected to witness the IPL matches at Eden Gardens.

The stand-off between Kolkata Police and DLF Indian Premier League was over security fees, where the former had quoted Rs 2 crore as security fees while the organisers had offered Rs 50 lakh.

Following intervention by the government of West Bengal, Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB), and senior police officers, Red Chillies will now shell out Rs 75 lakh as security expenses for nearly one and half months of policing of Eden Gardens.

Earlier, Red Chillies had to pay Rs 90 lakh per match and its take in it was suppose to be Rs 3 crore if all stadium tickets were sold.

Red Chillies had to pay Rs 20 lakh to the police, and municipality tax of Rs 5 lakh.

So its expenses per match would had been Rs 1.70 crore, but this figure had now trebled.

Shah Rukh Khan bought Knight Riders for Rs 300 crore and will have to pay Rs 30 crore per year for the next 10 years.

The total cost per year for the team will be about Rs 75 crore.

In another significant turn of events, Red Chillies has decided to allot tickets for Eden Garden's 'president's box' to its sponsors and other contacts, which earlier used to be reserved for the officials of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the CAB, leading to some discomfort among the 31,000 members of CAB.

According to sources, Red Chillies Entertainment, which controls ticket distribution and sales at Eden Gardens for the IPL matches, has priced each ticket for the president's box at Rs 2,18,000 per match.

President's boxes at Eden Gardens are the 12 airconditioned boxes, each with 16 seats. Each one of these boses is provided with a television, a refrigerator, a telephone and an assortment of snacks and beverages to choose from. However, according to sources in Red Chillies Entertainment, these seats are being allotted to the sponsors of Kolkata Knight Riders, that include HDIL, Reebok, Nokia, The Telegraph, Belmonte and Tag Heuer.