Cricket grounds set to go green

OFFICIALS OF THE 12 STATE ASSOCIATIONS WILL VISIT SC FREIBURG STADIUM, WORLD’S FIRST SOLARPOWERED FOOTBALL STADIUM

India’s cricket stadiums are all set to go green very soon. The ‘green wicket’ initiative was initiated by the Ministry of Forest and Environment and is inspired by the ‘green goal’ concept which revolutionised Freiburg, the German city touted as the greenest in the world.

Officials of the 12 state cricket associations are currently in Germany where they will visit the SC Freiburg stadium, world’s first solar-powered football stadium. They will then attend a seminar on solar panels, waste management, sanitation and rain water harvesting in Munich on June 1.

Once the football club opted to go eco-friendly, the entire German city adopted the green initiative. The Indian government has identified cricket’s popularity as a stepping stone to inspire the society.

The M Chinnaswammy Stadium in Bangalore was India’s first cricket stadium to implement the eco-friendly tools in 2015. During the Munich seminar, Brijesh Patel, the former secretary of the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA), will give a presentation on the benefits the association has reaped after implementing solar panels.

Four cricket stadiums — Wankhede (Mumbai), Eden Gardens (Kolkata), Holkar (Indore) and Motera (Gujarat) have confirmed interest in implementing the ‘green wicket’ initiative. These four stadiums will be assisted by GIZ (a German development agency) to implement the solar panels, waste management, sanitation and rain water harvesting methods. “We will help them execute these initiatives. The other associations will be guided by us, but they would essentially do all the implementation work taking a cue from these four stadiums,” P Bineesha, project head of the ‘green wicket’ programme, told HT. She was also instrumental in transforming KSCA into the world’s first solar-powered cricket stadium.