Dibyendu Barua

New Delhi: The All India Chess Federation (AICF) may be ?struggling? on the revenue front and needs the players to part with some amount of their prize money to meet expenses but has no problem in paying its ?honorary secretary? under three different heads and spending a fortune on his travel.

These and many such alleged irregularities in AICF?s balance sheet have been tabulated by the Chess Players Association of India (CPAI), headed by Dibyendu Barua, in an open letter written to the federation president N. Srinivasan.

?AICF is always projected as being financially ?nearly in the red?, which makes it necessary to take decisions like a 10 per cent cut from player?s prize money,? the players said in the letter.

?In an effort to bring into light the abnormal expenditure in running the federation and discrepancies in federation?s liability as claimed by the AICF secretary, CPAI has prepared the accompanying report.?

The players? association has been at loggerheads with AICF secretary P.T. Umar Koya after he decided to cut 10 per cent of their prize money to meet the expenses of the federation last year.

Although the decision was withdrawn later, the federation is yet to pay the amount which has been already deducted.

In the letter, the players pointed out that Koya, despite being an honorary secretary, has drawn yearly salary to the tune of Rs seven lakh under three categories ? honorarium to honorary secretary, honorarium as editor of AICF forum and honorarium as editor of AICF website.

Meanwhile, Madras High Court, in an interim injunction has restrained Koya and treasurer Soumen Majumdar from interfering in the day-to-day affairs of the federation after a suit was filed by some state federations alleging that the duo had committed financial irregularities.