Committee chairman says bigger task is to get racing licence

For now, the issue of raising Bangalore Turf Club’s (BTC) membership from 350 to 500 (including 50 government-nominated memberships) is as good as over. The subject, withdrawn from the recent special meeting, will not make a comeback in the next general body meeting to be presided by new chairman Harindra Shetty and ad-hoc committee members.

The new memberships, as promised to the government by the previous panel, had not gone down well with the members, and the committee resigned recently.

While it is a challenge for the new chairman Shetty and his team to prevail upon the government to get the racing licence sanctioned for this season, the bigger challenge lies in convincing the chief minister about dropping the membership issue.

The new team has started its ground work and met the additional chief secretary, finance department, ISN Prasad.“We are waiting for an appointment with the CM. We have to explain how the previous committee, without the members’ approval, had committed to additional memberships. For now, the resolution is dropped and we will not bring it back on the agenda of the next general body meeting scheduled this month. Right now, our main concern is to get the racing licence,” Shetty told BM.

The new committee has communicated with the CM about the licence issue. “The extraordinary general meeting held on Tuesday had withdrawn all resolutions proposed by the previous committee. An ad-hoc managing committee was formed to represent the club before the government and to ensure that the club gets licence at the earliest.”

“The racing industry in the country is largely dependent on the activity of racing at Bangalore race course, considering the enormous totalisators turnover at the club, which recorded a turnover of nearly Rs 2,000 crore during the financial year 2016-17. Any cessation of activity at the Bangalore race course would affect the financial stability of other race clubs in the country, apart from endangering the future of horse-racing. In these circumstances, I would request the government to kindly grant licence for the period between September and November 2017 as per the earlier practice. Otherwise, the racing industry would come to a grinding halt affecting the livelihood of more than 10,000 persons,” the letter says.

Courtesy Bangalore Mirror Bureau