Delhi, Jaipur dropped as IPL venues

New Delhi, Jaipur and Visakhapatanam have been dropped as venues in the latest revised schedule for the second edition of the Indian Premier League which is still awaiting the green signal from the Home Ministry.

The revised schedule, which was submitted to the Home Ministry on Tuesday, is without these three venues, as the respective state governments cannot not guarantee security because of the general elections, IPL sources said.

The sources said that the new schedule has taken into consideration the security constraints of all the state governments and been prepared in such a way that it would not hinder the election process.

"We do not expect any problems now. The Home Ministry will consult the state governments and then get back to us," a top IPL official said.

The multi-million dollar League has run into rough weather because of security concerns in view of the general elections and the Home Ministry has already rejected two of their earlier schedules.

The rejection of schedules and the Home Ministry's reluctance to provide paramilitary forces for the event had put a serious question mark on the fate of the high-profile events, slated to begin from April 10.

The sources said that the hill city of Dharamsala will host a few matches while the organisers are also looking at Raipur in Chhattisgarh as a possible venue.

An IPL delegation has already visited Raipur and inspected the facilities there.

Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Mohali, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad will host the bulk of the matches.

The IPL also received a boost with Kolkata clarifying that it would not have any problem with revised schedule since the matches will not clash with election preparations.

Desperate to get the cash-rich event on track, the IPL's top brass held a series of meetings since Monday to fine-tune the schedule.

The IPL is keen to hold the tournament between April 10 and May 24 as any postponement would mean that the event has to be shelved till this period next year in view of the crammed cricketing calendar.

A postponement would also entail heavy financial losses for the organisers as well as the eight franchisees many of whom have already gone ahead with their merchandising and advertising campaigns.