Somebody is Making Money off this Formula
By Ubaid Parkar
Renault's F1 demonstration in New Delhi in November 2008
It has been ten years since Formula-1 has trying to make inroads in India. But the road is laced with potholes and open manholes and not a gravel trap in sight.
Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Punjab were in contention when the idea first spawned in 2006 and a deal was to be finalized in December of that year. Kolkata and Hyderabad came close but political and financial agglomerations canceled it off. Hyderabad’s F1 ambition was nascent since 2003 but now has been a tally of infant mortality. It was Chandrababu Naidu, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, who initiated the plan along with other major infrastructure projects including one of an airport. With the fall of his Government that project was dropped. The proposed land was forwarded to IT developers. Kolkata on the other hand had the Left. So that was left out as well.
Location, Location, Location
Greater Noida came as a necessity from the excesses of Delhi. The UP Government came up with the idea of creating Greater Noida, an extension of Noida, with stringent planning. The National Capital Region (NCR) was scheduled to host the Commonwealth Games in 2010. The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President, Suresh Kalmadi justified the construction of the circuit on those grounds. The international airport, hotels and other infrastructure would be ready.
The IOA had initially proposed 2009 for the inaugural event which got shifted to 2010. The 2010 Commonwealth Games however pushed it to 2011.
Benefits
The hotel and tourism industry would get an immediate boost and so will the country’s profile. It is said that the sport has the potential to generate around $170 million in revenue and employ as many as 10,000 people. Furthermore, the opportunity in advertising tie-ups between manufacturers and F1 is also a possibility. The amount spent for the entire event can be attributed as an expense for marketing India. Moreover, it will be a motor car racing track capable of holding an F1 race. This means that the track should be able to hold events, both at national and international levels during other periods of the year.
Political Intervention
During 2008, JPSK negotiated a deal over land with the state of Uttar Pradesh, which is run by Kumari Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party. This was allied to the UPA until June that year but then withdrew its support. The deal with Mayawati was done in September, with 2500 acres being declared a Special Economic Zone.
The plan was to use 1000 acres for the race track and the rest for other developments, in a project which would cost around $500m. It may be that the project is being blocked by the Government because of the involvement of Mayawati.
FOA has lots of infrastructure requirements pertaining to travel, accommodation of teams and supporting crews. For instance, the road between the airport and the circuit should accommodate the huge trailers employed by teams. China had a first hand experience in this regard when a few of their underpasses could not accommodate such trailers and were consequently delayed in their entry into the F1 calender.
And now…
The Union Sports Ministry has now rejected a request from JPSK Sports Private Ltd for release of foreign exchange worth $36.5 million as license fee to the UK-based FOA. This hyphenated sputtering implicitly beckons that the whole process has been tied in political knots with infrastructure developments providing a quasi-justified perspective towards
