Dahi Handi has a money profile unlike any other festival: a large share of the budget goes out as prize money on a single afternoon, in cash, to people who are not from your society, in front of a crowd. It is the least forgiving accounting environment a committee will face all year.
Commit the prize structure in writing, early
Decide and publish the prize tiers before the day — first, second, third, consolation, and anything for the youngest govinda. A prize structure invented at 4pm under pressure from a crowd is how committees overspend by a third and cannot explain it afterwards.
The lines that are easy to forget
The handi and the prize money are the obvious costs. These are the ones that appear late and unbudgeted.
- Police permission and municipal charges
- Insurance for the participating govindas
- Ambulance and medical standby
- Mats, safety harnesses and barricading
- Sound, anchor and the stage
- Water, refreshments and prasad for pathaks
Record prize payouts like any other expense
A pathak takes the prize and leaves. If nothing is recorded at that moment, nothing will ever be recorded. Log it as it is handed over — the amount, the pathak, who authorised it — and photograph the acknowledgement if you take one. Cash paid out in public with no record is the single hardest thing to reconstruct at an AGM.
Sponsors want this event more than any other
Dahi Handi draws a crowd, which makes it the easiest festival of the year to fund through sponsorship. Structure it — the handi, the prize pool, the stage, the sound — credit each sponsor by name on the published report, and you will spend far less of your members’ money next year.