The buzz of Kochi having its own Indian Premier League team has been around for quite sometime. Here is more information on the bidding process. The cities that have been offered as the home location for the franchises are Pune, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Vizag, Rajkot, Cuttack, Baroda, Cochin, Indore and Gwalior. The auction is scheduled to happen on March 9th 2010.

• This time the process of bidding for teams is extremely difficult unlike in 2008. Among the most contentious clauses is the requirement for the bidder to privide a bank guarantee equivalent to 100 per cent of the money that the winning bidder offers for the 10-year contract within seven days of winning the bid. Where as in 2008, the initial franchisees of the eight IPL teams had to provide only 10 per cent of their bids as bank guarantee.
• Bidders also need to have a net worth of $1 billion as a pre-requisite and offer a pre-bid bank guarantee of $100 million. In the 2008 auctions, prospective bidders paid a pre-bid deposit of Rs 20 crore.
• The minimum bid price has been fixed at a staggering $225 million (Rs 1,042 crore), compared to the base price of $50 million (over Rs 230 crore) when the first auctions were held in 2008.

Here is an interesting fact. A list of India’s 10 most affluent cities was recently published. Following is the list

1. New Delhi – Has IPL Team (Delhi Daredevils)
2. Bangalore – Has IPL Team (Royal Challengers)
3. Mumbai – Has IPL Team (Mumbai Indians)
4. Chennai – Has IPL Team (Chennai Super Kings)
5. Hyderabad – Has IPL Team (Deccan Chargers)
6. Kolkata – Has IPL Team (Kolkata Knight Riders)
7. Kochi – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010
8. Pune – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010
9. Jaipur – Has IPL Team (Rajasthan Royals)
10. Ahmedabad – One of the home locations thats on offer in 2010

7 out of the 10 most affluent cities in the list, have an IPL team. All 6 cities above Kochi has an IPL team. All 3 cities that dont have an IPL team are on offer as a home location for the auction on March 9th.

Mohanlal and Priyadarshan has shown interest in bidding. Also Muthoot Pappachan Group is said to have making efforts for a Kochi team by partnering with Mohanlal and Priyadarshan. Also there are reports that Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed al-Nahyan is interested in picking up a team. Sheiks and Malayalees has been sharing a very good bond from the past couple of decades . Keeping that in mind, we hope he bids for Kochi too . There are reports that YusufAli MA, M.D of EMKE group and person behind LULU group (who is also building India’s biggest mall in Kochi) is keen on a Kochi team. As per some reports Salman Khan is keen on bidding for an IPL team and is interested either in Kochi or Nagpur.

Making this entry on Kochivibe has made us dizzy. Especially the Rupees and Dollars part . We hope that Kochi is one of the 2 lucky cities to get an IPL team. We are amused to see “Dharmsalsa” as one of the cities up for grabs. That just DONT sound like one of the cities that would have an IPL team (sorry Dharmsalians). Kochi would make a better team anyday! .  Fingers crossed for March 9th.!