The Gujarat Cricket Association (GCA) will construct the world’s largest cricket stadium at Motera near here at a cost of Rs. 700 crore, the foundation stone for which was laid on Monday.
The new stadium, expected to be completed in two years, will have a seating capacity of 1.10 lakh spectators. Currently, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Australia, is the world’s largest cricket stadium with a capacity of one lakh.
BJP chief Amit Shah had succeeded Narendra Modi as the President of GCA when the latter resigned in May 2014 after the last Lok Sabha polls.
The foundation stone for the mammoth stadium was laid by Parimal Nathwani, Vice President of GCA and Group President, Reliance Industries Ltd, apart from other GCA officials. Nathwani is also a Rajya Sabha MP from Jharkhand.
With the arrival of heavy duty construction equipment, the Motera site now gives the look of a mega project site, said Nathwani. M/s. STUP Consultant Pvt Ltd is the project management consultant and M/s. Populus, the architect and designer of the new Motera Stadium, which also designed the Melbourne Cricket Stadium. Larsen and Toubro will be the principal contractor.
Nathwani said that the new cricket stadium, replacing the old one at the same site, will be spread over approximately 63 acres of land. The old stadium was razed to the ground recently. “There will be a concourse to connect the entire stadium for pedestrian and vehicular movement. Moreover, the new club house will be equipped with 50-55 rooms and an Olympic-size swimming pool,” he said. There will also be 76 corporate boxes.
The new stadium will have three practice grounds for cricketers as well as indoor cricket academy for providing coaching to the budding cricketers.
The GCA management has also taken care of parking and traffic issues in designing the new cricket ground. “The parking area will accommodate around 3,000 cars and 10,000 two wheelers. In the past, the whole traffic load was only on one main road from Motera to Sabarmati. In the new stadium, the traffic will be segregated in three directions.”