'Rs.18,000-22,000 crore impact on Indian GDP by World Cup Cricket'

Chennai, Oct 5 (IANS) The Cricket World Cup being held in India will impact the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) with an additional output of about Rs 18,000-22,000 crore and the gross value added (GVA) will be about Rs 7,000-8,000 crore and will have a very minimal impact on the inflation, said a report by two economists of Bank of Baroda.

"In terms of impact on GDP, with an estimated additional output of Rs 18,000-22,000 crore attributed to the World Cup, the impact on gross value added is estimated to be around Rs 7,000-8,000 crore. This will be incremental GDP at the primary stage of expense," said economists Jahnavi Prabhakar and Aditi Gupta in their report 'Hitman and King’s cover drives to boost India’s GDP'.

According to them, services inflation will be impacted for sure as prices of airline tickets, hotel accommodation, etc. have gone up for this period.

Also, the prices charged by the informal segment in the services sector (which is not tracked in the CPI index) would show a substantial increase.

"However, this would be restricted to these 10 cities (where matches are held) for the period of October and November only. As these trends are also witnessed during these months due to seasonal impact of festival season, the impact of the World Cup could be hard to separate. The upward bias in inflation on this score could be between 0.15-0.25 per cent for these two months (without separating the festival spending impact)," the report said.

The tournament is spread over 45 days with 48 matches between 10 teams.

"We estimate that at least around 25 lakh people are set to witness the sporting extravaganza at the 10 venues across the country for the 48 matches to be played, while even a larger number is expected to watch the highly anticipated tournament from their homes across the globe," the report notes.

According to the report, the tentative expenditure under various heads are: Ticket sales Rs 1,600-2,200 crore; TV Rights/Sponsorships Rs10,500-12,000 crore; Team Spending Rs.150-250 crore; Foreign Tourists Rs 450-600 crore; Domestic Tourists Rs.150-250 crore; Gig Workers/Event Management Rs 750-1,000 crore; Merchandise Rs 100-200 crore; Spectator Expense Rs.300-500 crore; Screenings and Food Delivery Rs 4,000-5,000 crore.

The base case scenario total comes to Rs.18,000 crore and the Optimistic Scenario total is Rs.22,000 crore.

Apart from this, the government is also likely to mop up its tax collections through ticket sales, GST on hotels, restaurants and food delivery and others. The GST and tax collections during the entire event across different categories is expected to add to the government coffers which will give the government additional fiscal space, the report added.