From Hooghly to the FIFA World Cup: Bengali techie among 6,000 chosen from 10 lakh applicants
The Statesman | 29 May 2026
‘Sob khelar sera bangalir football’, immortalised by Manna Dey’s golden voice in the movie Dhanni Meye, and as soccer fever grips the globe for the next month, for the second consecutive time after the Qatar WC in 2022, there will be a direct Bong connection in the upcoming FIFA World Cup 2026, which starts from June 11.
Incidentally, though selected once, India has never played in any edition of the FIFA World Cup.
In the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, a company from West Bengal, BMC Electroplast belonging to Saptarshi Dutta, a Bengali, supplied the instrument transformer through which the stadiums were lighted. Additionally, West Bengal Livestock Development Corporation, Haringhata, supplied packaged goat and sheep meat.
In the 23rd edition of the FIFA World Cup, hosted jointly for the first time by three countries — United States, Canada and Mexico — from June 11 to July 19, 2026, a Hooghly-born techie, Snehangshu Dutta, who now lives in the USA, has been selected as an official volunteer of FIFA WC 2026 among a 6,000-strong volunteer squad, finally selected from over one million applicants.
Originally from Phulpukur in Chinsurah, Hooghly District, West Bengal, Snehangshu Dutta now lives in Dallas, USA, and works at an IT firm there. His wife also lives with him and works in the IT sector in Texas.
“I am an avid football fan like all Bengalis, and in October last year I filled up the online application form for volunteer selections for the FIFA World Cup 2026. I was finally selected in the final list of 6,000 volunteers. This year there will be a record participation of 48 countries totalling 104 matches. I am really excited and waiting anxiously to hold the Adidas football specially developed for this WC and see my childhood icons Messi, Ronaldo, Neymar, Mbappe, Haaland, Harry Kane, Vinicius and others from inside the ground,” he said.
Snehangshu Dutta will volunteer in about six to eight World Cup matches, as already informed by FIFA. “I missed Messi in Kolkata when I lived there, but now I have a chance to see them all from inside the field so closely,” he added.
The transformer built by BMC Electroplast of Saptarshi Dutta had protected the electrical apparatus of the Qatar FIFA WC 2022 stadiums from high voltage electrical lines. Shantanu Mitra, an ex-student of NIT Durgapur, and others had started the company.
All eight stadiums in Qatar were fitted with electrical equipment supplied by BMC Electroplast, including the Lusail stadium, an architectural marvel where the high-voltage final match took place in Doha on December 18, 2022, in which Messi lifted the trophy, defeating Mbappe and company.
The then West Bengal animal husbandry minister Swapan Debnath had himself flagged off the first batch of exports of packaged goat and lamb meat from Haringhata in May 2022 for the Qatar World Cup.
“There were a total of six import consignments totalling 1.2 metric tonnes of packaged goat and lamb meat from Haringhata, and the state government organisation received about Rs. 1 crore in foreign currency,” said former West Bengal animal husbandry minister Swapan Debnath.
Just before the 2022 FIFA WC in Qatar, Haringhata had received permission from the Agriculture and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for a licence to export processed meats.