Should the cricket World Cup victory penalize Indian taxpayers?

Fellow Taxpayers of India,
The Indian Cricket team won the cricket world cup after 28 years to bring glory and greatness to the country. No one can disagree with that. But rewarding them with gazillions of cash prizes, land and other similar perks is just a burden on the taxpayer's money.

BCCI announced rewards of Rs. 1Cr to each player. In addition, the Govt. of Maharashtra and Delhi also showed extreme rush to do the same. The Karnataka Government will be giving away land to all the players. Railways are not too far behind, after they declared a free of cost, lifetime 1st class AC travel facility to all the players. There will be other states that will follow soon.

But all these states and federal departments get that kind of money from one source - the taxes paid by the taxpayers of India, like me and you. The BCCI is not a Govt. of India enterprise and they will be giving these rewards out of their income from ticket sales, advertisement contracts and other sources of income. Although this manoey can be better used to improve the cricket facilities in India, we can leave it up to BCCI to decide how they want to squander their money. But the Governments have no right to show such generosities.

Cricketers already earn a crazy lot. Dhoni earns Rs. 450Cr annually while Tendulkar pulls in a mighty Rs. 125 Cr. Read here http://bit.ly/f0IM7o . Other players make similar enormous income if not more. So do they have the right to accept taxpaper's money? Imagine what could be done with this money.

1. The Governments can seriously work towards improving the living standards of poor.
2. They can start cleaning up the cities and eradicating slums.
3. They can improve the basic infrastructure in the country.
4. Invest in cheap or even free education for poor.
5. The reward land can be used to decentralize the big cities.
6. Devote this money towards development of other sports.

There can be so many other things that can be done. A list put up here will always be incomplete. Moreover, every sportsman will expect his/her state to reward similarly in case of Olympics success or any other such success. So this can be a bad precedent.

Many sportsmen have been rewarded in the past. Sometimes these are justified, but in case of Indian cricketers, this policy is not at all justified.

So please support this petition by signing it and we will together make efforts to bring this to the notice of the people sitting up there.

Thank you.