Patna: The stench of a stadium scam permeated through the state on Wednesday - the day Shreyasi Singh became the first person from Bihar to win a Commonwealth Games gold - after it was revealed that several stadiums purportedly built by the government have "vanished".

The state government had conceptualised stadiums at the sub-division and block levels under the Mukhyamantri Khel Vikas Yojana in 2008-09 to promote sports and provide facilities to sportspersons. Till 2013, the art, culture and youth department spent around Rs 70 crore on constructing 102 stadiums across the state. However, several of these stadiums exist only on paper; only their remains, resembling long-lost archaeological monuments, exist.

At some places, such as Brahmapur in Buxar and Bihiya in Bhojpur, there are just a few seats or stairs constructed in the name of stadiums; the rest of the ground is either open, or unlevelled, or has wild shrubs scattered all over. Similar conditions prevail at various stadiums built in Nalanda, Kaimur and other districts.

Places were the stadiums should exist have turned into cattle sheds, ponds, farm fields. At some places, the sports utility buildings have crumbled.

When contacted, art, culture and youth department minister Krishna Kumar Rishi told The Telegraph: "There has been no wrongdoing with regard to stadiums. The ones that were built earlier have crumbled because they were not maintained properly. This happened because there was no mai-baap (parents) of those stadiums, who could have taken care."

He, however, took a series of steps that proved the government had been caught on the wrong foot over the issue. The department has initiated an inquiry into the matter, which has put a question mark on the entire scheme, and minister Rishi also held a closed-door meeting with his department's officials in the evening, highly placed sources said.

"I have written to all district magistrates to probe the condition of stadiums built by our department in their respective jurisdictions and to send reports on them. We will also review them and take appropriate action. If needed, we will conduct an inquiry on our own too," Rishi said.

The minister insisted that the government wanted to encourage sports and sportspersons, and has sanctioned 52 more stadiums that will be constructed in this fiscal.

A source in the department said chief minister Nitish Kumar, who is scheduled to return to Patna from New Delhi on Thursday, is expected to summon Rishi over the issue of the missing stadiums.