The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has committed a corpus of Rs 500 crore for the development of grassroots cricket in Mumbai over the next 10 years.
The decision was taken at the association’s annual general meeting (AGM), held at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday (September 11). The fund will be used to support grassroots cricket, including school and college cricket, as well as affiliated clubs in the city.
“For grassroots cricket, we decided to allocate a corpus fund of Rs 500 crores. In the last AGM, we contributed Rs 100 crores and this time we did increase it to Rs 500 crores for our grassroots cricketers, clubs like maidan clubs, school clubs and college clubs,” MCA president Ajinkya Naik said after the general body meeting.
The MCA already has a corpus of Rs 100 crore for the purpose. Under the new plan, the association will contribute Rs 40 crore every year for the next 10 years to build the corpus to Rs 500 crore. The interest generated from the fund will then be used for grassroots development and distributed among affiliated clubs.
“It’s like an endowment fund. You keep this Rs 500 crores in a fixed deposit, and from that fixed deposit, the interest gets distributed. That is for providing kits, facilities, etc. So it depends on the clubs and how they want to use it. Sometimes they use it for logistics, sometimes they use it for cricket equipment, so there are different ways,” Naik said.
In another significant decision, the MCA has decided to name three lounges at the Wankhede Stadium after Sachin Tendulkar, Madhav Mantri and Ajinkya Rahane. A committee has been formed to identify and finalise the dedicated spaces for the three former India and Mumbai cricketers.
The association is also in the process of installing a statue of former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar inside the Wankhede Stadium complex.
Meanwhile, the MCA said it would follow the BCCI’s position on the National Sports Governance Act, 2025, which has become a subject of discussion among cricket administrators following the Supreme Court’s recent observations.
“We have not discussed it. We will go by the BCCI decision,” Naik said.
