The Indian Premier league (IPl) fever has gripped Ranchi as people started flocking the ticket counters at the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) from Tuesday evening. Although sale of tickets at the counter began from March 8, the outlets in the city did not sale any ticket on the day as they were not provided tickets by the IPl authorities.
“The tickets will come by evening and sale will begin from tomorrow morning,” said Dinesh of Cafe Coffee Day, a ticket outlet in Kanke Road.
Purportedly, none of the counters in the city have been supplied with tickets priced at Rs 700, lowest denomination tickets. “The authorities have given tickets in the denomination of Rs 1500, 2500 and 3500,” said an employee of The Mobile Store in Hariom Tower, Ranchi.
While cricketing events in Ranchi is bringing in revenue for the JSCA, the events also present an opportunity to ticket touts to earn money. like India-England cricket match, the shameless bunches of touts were brazenly selling IPl tickets at higher than marked price under the nose of Police and RAP jawans.
The touts’ price list for March 8 was Rs 1000, Rs 2000 for tickets worth Rs 700, Rs 1500 respectively even as the man behind the counter tried in vain to sell Rs 1500 tickets at Rs 200, as claimed by few standing in the queue.
Interestingly, tickets were sold in bunches to people and the devilish reaction indicated that the tickets will be black-marketed from tomorrow even few people confessed black-marketing it.
“I am going to sell these tickets tomorrow to make money,” said a tout swirling two Rs 1500 tickets in the air. The tout boasted of getting offers for selling the tickets atRs 1800 a piece however he expects to sell it for more than Rs 2000.
Surprisingly, the two odd counters ran dry of Rs 700
tickets by the time clock hit 3 pm supposedly due to over selling to a few.
The cricket matches are a sort of blessing in disguise for the people in the neighbourhood who used this occasion, like the India-England match, to trade in tickets.
Women standing in queues at the JSCA counter charged around Rs 200 more for buying any ticket from the ladies counters, a charge for taking pain for waiting. There were two ladies counters at JSCA cricket stadium.