BCCI, Greenko, JSW among winners of PM mementos E-auction

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), as well as representatives from Greenko, JSW Group, and are among those who have bagged the 20 most valuable items under an e-auction of the Prime Minister’s mementos.

The National Gallery of Modern Art has conducted three rounds of these e-auctions since 2019.

The first two rounds were done in 2019 while the third took place in September 2021. Proceeds from these auctions go to the Namami Gange Mission aimed at conserving and rejuvenating the Ganga.

According to the responses to a Right to Information (RTI) request filed by ET, BCCI bid the highest amount for eight of the 20 most expensive items that were auctioned.

These include the javelin used by gold medallist Neeraj Chopra at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games that it bagged for a winning bid of ₹1.5 crore, making it the most valuable item auctioned.

Mahesh Kolli, the president and joint managing director of Greenko, a renewable and energy storage player, won the javelin used by gold medallist Sumit Antil at the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic games for a bid ofover ₹1 crore.

The Angavastra autographed by the Tokyo 2020 Paralympic contingent is the third most valuable item bid out.

One Shyamsunder Shrikrishna Maniyar quoted the highest bid of ₹1 crore for this item, which was presented by the Paralympians to Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a breakfast hosted by him to felicitate the contingent.

Maniyar was the only bidder for this item. At a winning bid of ₹90 lakh and two hundred rupees, the BCCI bagged an Angavastra autographed by the Tokyo 2020 Olympic contingent.