It has been over a year since the Shiv Chhatrapati Sports City at Balewadi was made fully functional at a cost of around Rs 400 crore to host the Commonwealth Youth Games. But events at the complex over the past 12 months — two world junior meets, badminton and volleyball followed by an amateur cadet wrestling and a world carrom championship — do not make for a truly international calendar.

After the World Junior Badminton Championship in November 2008, nine months passed before the stadium landed the World Junior Volleyball. But there was no proper place to host it and so the badminton hall was converted into a volleyball arena.

Simultaneously, the World Amateur Cadet Wrestling Championship was hosted in a nearby hall before the World Carrom Championship in August. The next international event, the Under-18 Asian Women’s Basketball, is slated for December, again in the badminton hall. The calendar looks pretty bare thereafter, as the stadium will have to wait till August next when the Asian Grand Prix Athletics will come to Pune. Of the Rs 400 crore spent on the complex, Rs 150 crore went into the hockey polygrass stadium alone. The badminton hall cost Rs 76 crore and Rs 35 crore was spent on the shooting range. While the table tennis hall accounted for Rs 10.87 crore, renovation of the athletics stadium required Rs 23 crore.

Between the swimming pool, wrestling hall, weightlifting hall, boxing hall and tennis courts, the government spent another Rs 40 crore. The water and electricity bills come at over Rs 7 crore per annum. It costs the state government another Rs 1 crore a year to maintain the stadium.

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